


Calling the Moon

by roebling



Series: Calling the Moon [3]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, Illnesses, Starvation, Violence, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-24
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:22:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roebling/pseuds/roebling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weeks before his seventeenth birthday, Spencer Smith is forced to go camping with his family. Miles away from his best friend, who's about to start college and leave Spencer behind, he's miserable and lonely. He'd give anything to close his eyes and wake-up someone new. Soon enough, he'll have that chance ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to both Stay & Dog Days, but it's quite different in tenor. Reading those stories is not necessary to understand this one. This is not a happy story. There are mentions of injury, hunger, illness, graphic violence, and what some might consider child abuse. And, yeah, werewolves. I tried to be a little innovative with my werewolf lore, but this owes what are probably obvious debts to JK Rowling's werewolves. Thank you a ton to pr_scatterbrain & prettykitty_aya for reading this over. And thanks as always to Jaime. Credit for the title goes to Dar Williams.

Spencer's phone buzzes in his lap, startling him out of a vague heat-soaked daydream. He looks up. The girls are asleep beside him. His mother dozes in the front seat. His father, driving, argues balls and strikes with the radio announcers. The air conditioner hums, but the car is still too warm, too small, impossibly stifling.

There's really nowhere else Spencer would less like to be.

The text is from Ryan. _Did u get there yt? Orientation sucks so far, all the kids are morons._

Spencer types out his reply: _Not yet, should be soon. Sry it sucks but does it really surprise u?_

He hits send, and throws his head back against the seat.

"We're almost there, champ," his dad says, glancing back in the rear-view mirror. "I was thinking we could stop at that last rest area and grab some dinner. Does that sound good?"

Spencer makes an indistinct noise of agreement. A mini-van with one side all smashed in and a Wyoming license plate drives past. Last year, Jacki brought a book of road-trip bingo cards she'd gotten from a friend. They'd all peered eagle-eyed out the windows looking for yellow Hummers and poultry trucks. Spencer had been exultant when he'd spotted a car with three dogs in the back for the win. Now, he finds the prospect of such inane games a little insulting. He is glad the girls are sleeping.

Each summer since he can remember, Spencer's family has spent a week or two vacationing with his Aunt Laurel and Uncle Eddie and their kids. The family rents a few cabins up in the mountains, overlooking a beautiful private lake. When he was small, Spencer enjoyed spending time with the cousins he never saw. His mother and his aunt arranged crafts and games for all the kids, and his Uncle Eddie tied an inner tube to the back of his motorboat and took them for thrilling rides across the water. They toasted marshmallows over crackling campfires and Spencer's mom let him stay up as late as he liked.

As he's gotten older, those attractions have faded. Spending time at the cabin feels like exile, far away from the happy comforts of video games, malls, and friends. His cousin Drew has turned into a stereotypical brain-dead jock. He mocks Spencer for not playing football and makes disparaging comments about his weight, his hair, his clothes -- everything, really. Normally, the trip is salvaged by Ryan's presence -- however begrudgingly, his father always lets him come along. But this year Ryan is at his pre-college orientation; Spencer has to endure his family vacation alone.

There's an accident on the interstate. They sit in traffic for two hours. Everyone's mood grows worse. Spencer's dad mutters to himself and shuts the air conditioner off to keep the car from overheating. The girls whine that they are hot. Spencer's mom swallows a pair of aspirin. They don't stop for dinner at the rest area, and Spencer's stomach growls. They don't reach the lake until ten o'clock. The moon has risen over the mountains, nearly full. A bonfire burns brightly down near the water, and Spencer can hear the cheerful voices of all his relatives.

As he's helping his father undo the car top carrier, his mother tells him he'll be sharing a cabin with his cousin Drew and a friend he's brought along.

"What? Mom, no. Why can't I stay with you and Dad and the girls?" He can't keep the shrill note of displeasure from his voice.

"Spencer, calm down," his mother says sharply. "You don't have to get loud. I thought it would be nice. You're growing up, and I thought you'd want a little space. Besides, the girls are too big to share a bed. "

Spencer narrows his eyes. For the last six months their every conversation has been punctuated with the same refrain: I'm not a baby any more, Mom. Leave me alone.

"I could sleep on the floor," he says sulkily, although he knows he's already lost this argument.

His mother shakes her head, exasperated. "We've already paid for the other cabin, Spencer. I know you're upset that Ryan couldn't come this year, honey, but will you try to make the best of it? Please?"

There's a knot of anger twisting in his belly. "Fine," he says, throat tight. That's the way it's been, lately. Anger comes so quick, and burns so hot. His eyes sting a little. It just seems like the entire world is out to get him sometimes. He grabs his sleeping bag and his backpack and stalks off toward the other cabin. Nights in the mountains are cool, and Spencer tugs the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his hands. Ryan still hasn't texted him back. He's probably at some dorm party, flirting with the kind of sharp-eyed, sharp-hipped boys and girls he likes so much, the kind of boys and girls to whom Spencer is as good as invisible. Despite Ryan's pledges of true friendship, Spencer knew as much would happen. He is resigned to being left behind. He just didn't think it would happen so quickly.

Drew and his friend are sprawled out on the bottom bunks. They both look up when Spencer pushes open the door.

"Hey," Drew says, utterly disinterested. "Uh, this is my friend Justin. Justin, this is my kid cousin Spencer."

Spencer snorts, because for all his disdain and disinterest, Drew's older by only nine months. When they were kids they looked enough alike that people thought they were brothers. The friend -- Justin -- smiles, tentatively. He is slim and fine-boned, with dark hair cut a little long. His eyes are light -- green or hazel -- and framed by dark lashes. He is exactly the kind of boy that Spencer thinks is crazily hot. That fucking figures.

"Nice to meet you," he says.

"You too," Spencer mumbles. His ears are red from some vague but acute embarrassment. He lingers by the door for a moment. An electric lantern hangs near the ceiling; a moth flutters near it futilely. The cabins have always been infested with bugs.

Spencer drops his bag near the foot of one of the bunk beds and says to no one in particular, "I guess I'll take the top, then."

Drew snorts. "Maybe you should switch with him, dude. You don't want the bed to collapse under his weight and crush you." He laughs, loudly. He sounds kind of like a donkey. His friend Justin smirks and won't look Spencer in the eye.

"Fuck you," Spencer mumbles. He's used to this, expects it even, but it still stings, especially because he's actually gotten taller and a little less round in the last year. He climbs up the rickety ladder, which creaks but can obviously hold him. He unrolls his sleeping bag and curls up on his side, facing the wall. He waits, tense, for another snide comment but his cousin is holding forth now about some girl he met at a party and how badly she wanted to fuck him. Spencer rolls his eyes. He's pretty sure that his Aunt Laurel would ground Drew for the next ten years if she heard him talking this way. Justin says little of substance but hums in agreement occasionally. Spencer takes his phone out of his pocket. There are no new messages. He feels suddenly, painfully alone, even though there are a thousand possible explanations: knowing Ryan he left his phone in his room or forgot to bring the charger with him or something.

Finaly got here. Drew still an asshole. Cabin still full of bugs. Miss you.

Spencer rereads his message and hits send before he can erase the last two words.

There's a tentative knock at the door. It's Aunt Laurel.

"Guys, we're going to make s'mores," she says.

Drew and Justin are up and out the door so quickly Spencer can almost see the dust rise in their wake.

"You coming, Spencer?" his aunt asks.

"I think I'll stay here," he says. "I'm kind of tired."

"Okay," she says, skeptically. Aunt Laurel is a big proponent of family time. "We'll be out there for a while yet if you want to come later."

"Maybe," Spencer says.

"It's really good to see you, kid," she says. "I can't believe you're going to be a senior in high school in a few months."

Spencer has nothing to say to that. He can't believe it either. In spite of any evidence to the contrary, he feels too young.

Laurel lingers a moment longer, then says, softly, "Goodnight."

Spencer mouths goodnight into his pillow. His eyes are closed tight but hot tears leak out. He just ... four hours ago he would have given anything to be back in Vegas but now even that seems dismal and bleak. Ryan is busy; Ryan is ignoring him. Ryan is hours away, anyway, and he's stuck here for two weeks. There's no promise of improvement in the future. His jeans are stiff and the button bites into his stomach. He kicks them off and crawls into his sleeping bag to wage a war of attrition with his misery until he falls asleep.

He wakes up late the next morning. Breakfast is already over and everyone's down at the lake. Spencer sits at one of the picnic tables and eats a cold Pop-Tart. It's strawberry milkshake flavored and absolutely gross. Spencer used to be a pretty big fan of Pop-Tarts, but he can't bring himself to finish this monstrosity. He throws it away half eaten, careful to lock the lid on the garbage can when he's done. There are black bears and coyotes in the area, and Spencer's dad is serious about taking all precautions.

After his aborted breakfast, Spencer goes back to his cabin and reads for a while. Justin and Drew are out, and despite the heat and the omnipresent buzz of insects, he's not in a terrible mood. He's reading Great Expectations for A.P. English in the fall, and although he had to listen to Ryan rant about how Dickens is the most overrated of all English authors he's actually enjoying the book so far. Pip is kind of a dumb name, but god, he knows what it's like to just want to be someone new, someone different. Spencer wants that every day.

Jackie wakes him with a hand on the shoulder when it's time for lunch. He's fallen asleep with his face in the book and now his cheeks are all red. There's a new message on his phone. Spencer debates reading immediately, but Jackie is glaring and he is hungry. Outside, his mom and Aunt Laurel are dishing up some hideously orange macaroni from a box. Spencer makes a face when he takes his bowl.

"We're camping, Spence," his mom says. "You won't die if you have to eat EZ Mac and hot dogs for a week."

He eats the orange glop unwillingly. Drew and Justin walk up from the lake, dripping, and sit down at the other picnic table. His cousin is built along the family line: tall and bulky with a tendency towards softness. Justin, though -- he's perfect. The hard flat planes of muscle in his torso are covered with soft tan skin. Spencer stares for a long moment, following a rivulet of water that slowly traces that enticing terrain, then looks away. He wants, so badly and so often, usually in the worse situations, like the locker room at school, where he is all but a pariah, or now, with his cousin's friend. He doesn't even know how much of it is lust and how much of it is envy; all he knows is that it makes him feel hot and sick. Every touch makes him jump.

He opens his cell phone in his lap and checks Ryan's message. It's vague and brief: Miss you too. Sorry your cousin sux. I met some decent kids here at a party lst nght. Spencer gets an achy, unsettled feeling in his stomach and can't finish the rest of his macaroni.

Rather than join everyone else down at the lake after lunch, Spencer goes with his mom and his aunt make a run into town. They need to stock up on graham crackers and marshmallows. He listens to Fall Out Boy on his iPod and stares out the window at the tiny strip malls and ramshackle houses. He wonders if life would be easier in a place like this. Vegas always seems just a little too intense. At home, temptation waits just outside of his peripheral vision. Here, maybe he'd help with the family business or ride dirt bikes or go hunting. It's not very likely, but it's possible.

Spencer wanders through the washed-out florescent wasteland of Wal-Mart, lagging three steps behind the cart. While his mother and his aunt debate the relative merits of Pepsi versus RC Cola, Spencer takes out his phone and scrolls through his contact list, hoping it looks like he's got some urgent message to convey. He's wearing jeans and a tee shirt, and it's so hot out that even in the air conditioned store he can feel the sweat collect on his forehead. Aunt Laurel wants to buy water balloons but his mother worries they'll be a hazard to wildlife. A girl about Spencer's age and her mother are standing near a display of jarred candles. The girl isn't tall and is curvy in a comfortable way. She is wearing shorts, sneakers, and white socks. Her legs are long and tan. Spencer thinks sometimes that it would be so much easier if she were what he wanted. She isn't and he knows it, but he wishes sometimes it were different.

They load the back of his aunt's SUV with twelve-packs of paper towels and bags bulging with prepared foods. It's so hot that the asphalt wavers dizzily in the distance where the heat rises up. Spencer reads Ryan's message again. He does not know what to say in response. The thought of Ryan at a party makes him nervous, and he's skeptical of these supposed decent kids. His aunt pulls into the parking lot of the ice cream parlor in town.

"I figure since we did all the hard work of going shopping, we deserve a treat," she says.

Spencer winces as he steps out into the heat. The store is full of children, chattering and laughing. The throbbing in his temples amplifies all the noise. The kid behind the counter is vacant-eyed and spotty with acne. Ice cream splatters his purple apron. Spencer feels a sharp flash of embarrassment at being here with his mother and his aunt. They both order and then the kid stares at him expectantly.

"I don't really want anything," he mumbles.

His mother stares skeptically. "Spencer, you love this place."

He stares at the ground and shrugs. The linoleum tiles are mint green and off white, and fairly dirty. "I'm not that hungry."

His mother rubs her forehead. "Who are you and what have you done with my son?" she says, exasperated.

Aunt Laurel laughs. Spencer's cheeks go red, and the tips of his ears burn.

"He'll have a strawberry milkshake," she tells the boy behind the counter. She gives Spencer a funny look, one that he doesn't recognize. "I really hope you're not going to be miserable the entire time we're here."

"I'm not miserable," he says. His voice is rough. He's not any more miserable than usual, at least.

"You do realize I've known you since the day you were born, right?" his mother says. "You're about a nine out of ten on the misery scale right now, Spence. Just relax, okay?"

He nods, sullenly. His mother hands him his milkshake. She does know him well; strawberry is his favorite. Although his stomach aches, he finishes it before they get back to the lake.

Spencer knows he can't hide in the cabin all weekend. Camping is about family time, as his mom likes to say. He puts on his swim trunks and a tee shirt and sits at the end of the dock, feet dangling in the cool water. His sisters and his little cousin play in the shallows a little further down the beach. The sun is hot on the back of Spencer's neck, and he's tired despite how much he slept. He lays down flat on his back and stares up at the sky, which is bluer here than it ever is in Vegas.

His uncle and his dad are out on the boat. The buzz of the motor overwhelms the noise of the kids splashing and the murmur of insects. Spencer knows his dad would like it if he went out with them, but fishing is dumb and Spencer never knows what to talk about with his dad. Some strange unspoken obstacle has grown up between them in the last couple of years. Spencer thinks it might have started when he quit playing baseball in eight grade. His dad loved to come to the games and bought Spencer a glove for his birthday every year. Spencer enjoyed playing too; although he was not fast, he had a good arm and he was a decent player.

He's not sure why he quit. It just seemed kind of pointless to keep going at the time.

Spencer hasn't come out to his parents but sometimes he thinks his dad might know. He doesn't think that they'd be mad or anything, but there's no point since Spencer doesn't think he'll be doing any dating any time soon. There's a girl at his high school who is a lesbian. Spencer knows her by sight. She doesn't wear her hair short and she wears the same kind of clothes that all the other girls wear, but everyone knows who she is. Last year someone left opened condoms in her locker, filled with vanilla pudding from the cafeteria. Spencer had seen her in the principle's office afterward, sobbing.

Spencer wishes he was as brave as that girl, but he has a hard enough time at school as it is.

It's hot dogs for dinner that night. They eat them sitting around the fire, all together. Spencer's dad grossly exaggerates the size of the fish he caught that afternoon, and Uncle Eddie makes faces behind his back. Christina, his littlest cousin, giggles happily at her father's faces. She's only five -- Spencer heard his mother say that she was Eddie and Laurel's little surprise. He knows what that means. Christina is quiet and small for her age and she sometimes makes Spencer play fairies with her, but he loves her a lot.

"Drew, when are you leaving for school?" Spencer's mother asks, steering the conversation tactfully away from her husband's fish.

"End of the month," Drew says around a mouthful of hot dog. "School doesn't start until the twentieth or something but the football team gets to move in early because of camp and stuff."

"You must be nervous," Spencer's mother says.

Drew shrugs. "Not really."

Aunt Laurel laughs. "I'm holding you to that when you have a breakdown the week before you leave."

"We'll have to come up and see a game," Spencer's mom says, politely.

"Where are you thinking of applying, Spencer?" his aunt asks.

Spencer shrugs. "Just UNLV, probably."

Spencer's mother frowns. "You're not just applying to UNLV. We've talked about this." She turns to Aunt Laurel. "Spencer got a thirteen eighty on his SATs. His guidance counselor said he should think about UCLA or USC."

It's true -- the letter with his scores had come a few weeks into the summer. Spencer left it sitting unopened on his desk for a week, until his mother sat him down at the kitchen table and threatened to withhold car privileges until he graduated unless he opened it that instant.

Spencer was surprised at how well he did, but it doesn't make a difference. He's known that he's going to UNLV since the day last fall when Ryan got accepted with a scholarship.

"I might apply to a few other places too, I guess," he says, to appease his mother.

"That's great, Spencer. You should talk to Justin. He's starting at Pepperdine in the fall."

Justin looks up at the sound of his name. "Oh. Uh, yeah," he says. "My dad went there, so, uh ..."

"Cool," Spencer says. Justin gives him a tentative half smile and picks up his hot dog.

The conversation drifts. Drew got an email from his roommate the other day, and he didn't respond before they left for the lake. Aunt Laurel is worried that the roommate is going to think her son is some kind of uncivilized caveman. Drew couldn't really care less, from the sound of it. Spencer pushes some baked beans around his plate. The sun is setting into a bath of orange. Evenings are his favorite time of day. The despair that had wound him tight earlier is gone, and he is thinking that maybe it wouldn't be terrible to apply to a couple of other schools. It would make his mom happy, at least. He knows he'll end up going to UNLV with Ryan. It can't hurt to have another option, just in case, even if he doubts he'd get in to any of those other schools.

Spencer wakes early the following morning, before anyone else. He walks through the dewy grass to the table where the camp stove is and starts a pot of coffee. The air is chill. The lake is a perfect mirror of the pre-dawn sky. He takes a blurry picture of the scenery on his phone and sends it to Ryan, adding only half cynically: Don't you miss it?

By the time the adults wake up, the coffee is made and Spencer is three quarters of the way through a crossword puzzle. His mother sits down beside him and points out an answer he hadn't been able to get. He grumbles but pencils in the letters. She ruffles his hair. Christina sits in Spencer's lap and makes him read her the clues to the puzzle. His aunt starts making french toast, recruiting the twins to help her. Crystal shrieks when a bit of batter splatters onto her pajamas.

Drew and Justin stumble sleepily up to the table just as breakfast is ready. Spencer's sisters dish out the french toast. Aunt Laurel kisses her son on the crown of his head and asks what his plans for the day are.

"We're gonna go hiking," Drew says, vigorously sawing his pancakes into squares. "I want to show Justin the waterfall."

Aunt Laurel and Spencer's mom exchange a significant glance. "Maybe your cousin would like to go with you," she says, a bit of edge in her voice.

Drew frowns and starts to protest, but his mother silences him with a stern maternal glance. He glowers and says, "Yeah. Uh, Spencer, you want to come?"

"I mean, it's fine," Spencer says. "I was going to stay here and ..."

"And mope," Spencer's mother says. "Go hiking. You can sit around and read at home."

"Mom," Spencer says, frowning. "It's my summer reading. It's not like I'm just reading a dumb book for fun."

"Go hiking with your cousin," she says again, in a tone of voice that suggests that this argument is over. "It'll be good for you."

Drew has a sour look on his face. "We're gonna leave as soon as we're done, so get ready."

Spencer gets changed and throws his cell phone in his pocket. Drew is still eating when he heads back outside. Justin is washing dishes; Spencer helps him dry. When their hands brush, Justin's skin is cold and clammy, but Spencer trembles and pulls away anyway.

Drew finally finishes his breakfast. Aunt Laurel hands them a bag of sandwiches and bottles of water and they set off down the dirt road to the far side of the lake, where the trail up the mountain starts. Spencer stupidly only brought his gym sneakers from last school year. The white fabric is stained orange by the dust. Drew says little. He's obviously pissed off. Spencer kicks a stone that careens off the road into the brush. It's not like this was his idea. There are tons of other things he'd rather be doing.

It's a relief when they reach the trail. It's cooler under the cover of the woods. The stream that feeds the lake runs fast and pleasantly musical. Ryan wrote a poem about this stream the summer before he started ninth grade. He read it aloud to the whole group the night before they went home. Spencer wonders if he remembers. He never replied to the picture of the lake.

Justin and Drew start talking about what they're going to do when they get home. Drew has a girlfriend who he has been texting constantly. The way he talks about her makes Spencer uncomfortable. He's never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend. He's only kissed two people: Samantha Johnson at Brent's birthday party in eight grade, and Ryan. He's not sure if Ryan counts, because it had just been an experiment. That's what Ryan said -- he wanted to know what it was like, kissing another guy. It only happened once, anyway.

Spencer counts it, though.

"Where's emo boy this year?" Drew asks.

It takes Spencer a moment to realize Drew's talking to him. "Ryan," he says crossly. "His name is Ryan, and he's at orientation. He starts college in the fall too."

"Dude, Justin, this kid Ryan is like the biggest emo fag you've ever seen." Drew is breathing a little heavily. He wipes his forehead. Spencer stares at the ground, carefully watching his footing on the slippery rocks. "He seriously brought his whole fucking makeup kit up here with him last year. What a douche."

Spencer thinks the eyeliner thing is a little ridiculous too, but he hasn't said anything to Ryan. It's not like it really bothers anyone.

"Those kid are so weird," Justin says vaguely.

That sets Drew off. He goes on for twenty minutes about how gay emo music is and how Pete Wentz is an untalented asshole and how all those fucking kids need to get real. Spencer tries to concentrate on the sound of the running water, and the birds, and the soft noises their sneakers make on the fallen leaves. When Drew stops for a breather, Justin quietly turns the conversation towards his upcoming departure for football camp. He asks a question about the team's record the year before. On more familiar footing, Drew is reinvigorated, talking enthusiastically about schedules and scores and wide receivers. It's gibberish to Spencer.

He tries to quash the intense rush of gratitude he feels towards Justin. Honestly, nobody really wants to hear his cousin rant.

It's a long hike. Spencer is hot, and the back of his shirt is wet with sweat. It's a relief when they finally round a curve in the path and the river reappears from behind the trees. It's wider here, pooling behind fallen rocks, and deep. Spencer and his dad have fished for bass at this spot. The waterfall thunders fifty yards upstream. The mist it kicks up cools the air. Moss grows on the damp rocks, and the light that filters through the leaves is vivid green.

Drew and Justin go to take a look at the waterfall. Spencer slumps against a tree trunk and takes his phone out of his pocket. It's almost one thirty; that explains why he's so hungry, at least. Ryan's texted him back. Not rly missing bugs and heat but dorms here arnt much better. The one i'm staying in closed for two months lst yr because of bedbugs.

Gross, dude. Spencer can't think of anything else to say. Sometimes, it's like that with Ryan, and sometimes it's okay, but here he feels very, very far away from his best friend. He wishes Ryan would do something to make him feel better, but he's not going to hold his breath.

Drew and Justin walk back and they all sit on the ground and eat the sandwiches Aunt Laurel packed. She made them all the same thing -- peanut butter, honey, and bananas. Drew complains that he's been eating the same goddamn sandwich for lunch since kindergarten, but Spencer likes it. It makes him think of staying at his aunt's house after school when he was little, before they moved from Colorado. Even in the shade it's hot, and Spencer is drowsy after eating. He leans back on one hand and watches the little water spiders skim over the top of the stream.

Justin takes something out of his pocket, a little baggie and a glass pipe. Drew gives Spencer a sharp look.

"You better not fucking say anything to my parents about this," he says.

"I wouldn't do that," Spencer says. "I'm not a narc."

"Yeah, well, good," Drew says. "I thought you and your emo buddy were all straight edge."

Spencer frowns. "I'm not," he says. "I've smoked pot before."

He has -- twice, both times with Brent, who got the stuff from his older brother. Spencer doesn't know if it was shitty pot or if maybe he just didn't smoke enough, but it didn't make him feel any different.

Justin fills the pipe quickly, neatly, and holds the lighter to the bowl. He breathes in slowly. His cheekbones stand out in sharp relief. He closes his eyes and after a moment exhales a cloud of white smoke. He passes the pipe and the lighter to Drew, who repeats the process. He takes a second drag. His eyelashes flutter as he breathes in. He smiles broadly and lets the smoke trail out his nose.

"Fucking going to suck when I have to stop smoking up for school," he mumbles.

"Dude, you better stop soon," Justin says.

"This is it," Drew says. "I'm done after today."

"You keep saying that ..." Justin glances over at Spencer. His eyes are the unnatural color of the manicured grass of a golf course fairway in the forest light. "Do you want ..." He trails off, gesturing with the pipe.

Spencer has no reason to say no. He takes the pipe and the lighter. It takes him a moment to figure out how to hold it the right way. Drew is watching him carefully with half-lidded eyes. Spencer flicks the lighter, and the angle is wrong because he burns the side of this thumb a little, but when he inhales the smoke is thick and fragrant, almost like the smell of something good cooking, or the odor of the camp fire.

He counts to five and then breathes out. Something tickles in this throat and he stifles a cough. He blinks as he passes the pipe to Drew. He closes his eyes. He can feel it this time, he thinks. He wants to lay his head down on the soft moss. When Justin offers him another toke, he doesn't hesitate.

Spencer closes his eyes again, for a longer moment, and when he opens them Drew is on his feet and struggling out of his tee shirt.

"Let's go swimming," he says. "Come on."

Spencer frowns. "I don't want to have to walk back all wet," he says, slowly. That's part of the reason for his refusal. He knows what he looks like without a shirt on. He's not trying to invite scrutiny.

Justin frowns, slowly. "He's right, dude. I'm not gonna hike back soaking wet."

Drew frowns. "You guys are fucking pussies," he says. He kicks off his shorts and stalks off towards the deep part of the river

Justin rolls his eyes. "Your cousin is so high strung," he says.

"Yeah," Spencer says. "He's a little much for me."

Justin snorts. "I can tell."

Spencer frowns. He feels like that could be an insult, but he's not sure. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks.

Justin smiles. His dark hair looks very soft. "You get all wigged out around him." He waves a hand vaguely. His fingers are long and slim, the knuckles prominent.

"He's an asshole to me," Spencer mumbles. He leans forward, shoulders hunched. He feels like a baby, saying that, but it's true. He's never done anything to Drew.

"He's like that with everyone," Justin says. "Don't let it get to you." He picks up the little baggie again. He taps out the ash and repacks the pipe. When he's finished, he says, "Come here."

Spencer makes a face but scoots forward. The ground is damp and he's probably staining his pants. He hopes his mother packed the Shout.

"Let me show you how to hold it," Justin says. "If you're going to go to school in L.A., you don't want to look totally clueless."

"I'm not," Spencer says. This close he can feel the heat of Justin's body, smell the aggressive spicy cologne he wears. "I'm going to UNLV. I just said that to make my mom happy."

Justin stares at him blankly. "Why do you want to stay in Vegas?"

"That's where my best friend is," Spencer says.

"Dude, the whole point of going to college is to get away from all your lame high school friends and meet new people," Justin says.

Everyone says that, but Spencer has never wanted to meet new people. He's never needed any friend except Ryan.

Justin hands him the pipe. Spencer holds it awkwardly. Justin nudges Spencer's fingers into a better position. His skin is warm to the touch and as soft as Spencer thought it would be. This time, Spencer doesn't burn his thumb.

They don't say anything, just pass the pipe back and forth. Spencer knows it's true. Justin is right; it's not always going to be him and Ryan against the world. He can see even now how Ryan is drawing away from him, how the differences in their age and their circumstances are creating a gap that no amount of effort on Spencer's part can bridge. He's tried -- he's tried in so many ways to make himself indispensable, weave himself so tightly into the fabric of Ryan's life that their friendship can never unravel, but he feels the faults already. His worst, secret fear is that when Ryan is gone (when he's found better, more attractive, more interesting friends) there will be nobody else.

"I'm only going to Pepperdine because my dad wouldn't let me go to USC for film," Justin says, quietly. "I didn't tell him I was applying. When I got in, he said a film degree was a waste of money."

"That sucks," Spencer says.

"Yeah," Justin says.

He's still watching, with enough just intention in his gaze to be unsettling. Spencer pulls a blade of grass out of the ground and rips it in to tiny pieces just to have something to do. Justin leans forward and places his hands over Spencer's. Spencer's pulse quickens. He stares down at his dirty sneakers, at the mossy ground.

"You're still so nervous," Justin says. His thumb slides around to the underside of Spencer's wrist, tickling over ligaments and bones. "Calm down."

"Sorry," says Spencer. "Sorry."

Justin runs a finger down Spencer's palm. It tickles in a welcome way. Spencer's hands are a little sweaty. His nails are bitten short and not clean. Carefully, Justin interlaces their fingers. Spencer's hands are bigger but not as spare. He can't remember the last time he held hands with someone. He doesn't have much occasion for casual physical contact, other than with his mom or maybe Ryan. He isn't comfortable enough with anyone else.

Spencer looks up and Justin's mouth is half open. His teeth are white but a little crooked. He is staring at their joined hands like he's found the answer to some long unanswered question. He leans forward a little. One dark tendrils of hair falls out from behind his ear. Spencer wants to brush it back, wants to trace Justin's cheekbone with his thumb. He wants ...

"I'm pretty fucked up right now," Justin says.

"Yeah," says Spencer. His arm is bent awkwardly. His elbow aches.

"I've never ..."

"I have," says Spencer, quietly. He kisses Justin on the cheek, feather soft.

Justin looks up, quick. His mouth is set. He leans back and tugs Spencer forward, on top of him. Spencer braces himself on one elbow. Their hands are still linked. The ground smells rich and wet. There's a bit of dirt on Justin's chin. Spencer hopes he's not too heavy. He can feel the shift of muscle in Justin's thighs. Every inch of him is wound tight. Justin kisses him, delicate and sweet. It seems to last a long time.

Justin's eyes close. His head lolls back onto the litter. "We're so high," he whispers. He's gone completely still.

Spencer rolls over onto his back. He pulls his hand away; his fingers are sweaty where they were interlaced with Justin's. A bird chatters noisily far overhead. He can hear Justin breathing. He ought to be nervous, ought to be shaking, but a deep stillness has settled over them both.

They lay supine and silent, no longer touching. Spencer wants more. He wants to press Justin into the soft damp earth and kiss him again, open mouthed and hot. He wants to undo the fly on his pants and shove his hand under the elastic of his boxers and jerk off, dry and fast and a little painful. He wants so much, but he knows that the instant he moves he'll break the spell of calm and his pulse will start to race and the folly of this indiscretion will be imminently apparent.

It could just be the pot, anyway. Spencer doesn't remember much from the D.A.R.E classes they took in sixth grade, but it could be the pot talking.

They hear Drew before they see him. He move through the underbrush with the grace of a bull elephant. He shakes his wet head like a dog, and glares when he sees them.

"What are you fuckers doing? Yoga? Get the fuck up."

Justin opens his eyes. He sits up in one smooth motion and gets to his feet. Spencer can see the line of vertebrae down the center of his back shift; he wants to trace that elegant length with his tongue. He sits up and breathes in deep. He has to let it go now. He has to.

"You've got shit all in your hair," Drew says.

Spencer tries to brush out the leaves and pine needles. He probably looks like an idiot. Justin is a picture of composure. He's watching the river. Spencer swallows. What an idiot he's been. He takes his phone out of his pocket. Of course he has no new calls, no messages. Ryan's busy. Ryan's supposed to be registering for classes today. Spencer memorized the orientation schedule before Ryan did. He wishes he could go with Ryan. He wishes his mother hadn't made him come on the hike. He wishes Justin would just look at him again, once more ...

Justin doesn't. They head back, walking single file down the trail. Drew complains about having to babysit his little sister and brother, loud and oblivious, but neither Justin nor Spencer speak. Drew's ire wanes and he is quiet. If Drew notices any strange new distance between his cousin and his friend, he doesn't mention it. It's not very likely that he notices. No one says another word until they're back at the cabins.

That afternoon, Drew and his mother fight. Every year Spencer's parents and his aunt and uncle go out to dinner at this fancy restaurant a few towns over. Reservations have been made for that evening, and Drew is expected to watch the little kids. Spencer's mother and his aunt are already dressed in their nice clothing. Aunt Laurel's face heats to beet red as she argues with her son.

"You knew that we were going out tonight," she says. "I don't care if you're leaving for college in two weeks. You're still part of this family, Drew."

"Mom, come on," Drew complains. "It's not fair. I have to babysit every year. Justin and I were going to go hang out with some friends of his that are staying at the state park."

Laurel's expression darkens. "Who are these friends exactly? Not that I'm planning on letting you go, but even if I were to consider it, I'd have to talk to their parents first."

Drew groans. "You're not going to be able to run a fucking background check on everyone I meet when I'm at college."

"Watch your language," Laurel says.

Spencer pretends to read his book. He doesn't have these kinds of blow-outs with his parents; he never finds himself in situations that they would disapprove of.

"They're just some kids Justin knows from summer camp," Drew says. "It's my last summer, Mom. I just want to have fun before I have to leave. Make Spencer babysit."

Spencer's aunt squeezes her eyes shut like she's in pain. "I guess you want to borrow the car too."

Drew looks marginally contrite.

"Spencer can watch the kids, Laur," Spencer's mother says, tiredly. "He babysits for a family down the block all the time, and we've been leaving him with the twins for years."

"I know the kids would be fine with Spencer," Aunt Laurel says. "That's not the point."

"I don't mind, Aunt Laurel," Spencer says. He's starting to feel a little unwell again; everyone is watching him, even Justin, whose face is perfectly blank. Spencer is pretty well certain that he wasn't going to be invited along to hang out with Justin's friends. He's not surprised, but he can't repress a nauseating wave of disappointment.

Aunt Laurel sighs mightily. "Drew, I don't know what to do with you. You better call me when you get there. And you owe your cousin a pretty big thank you."

Drew rolls his eyes. "Thanks, Spencer," he says, completely insincere. "I'll call and check in every hour, Mom. You worry too much. When have I ever gotten in trouble?" He kisses his mother on the cheek.

Aunt Laurel thanks Spencer for watching the kids and tells him he can make hot dogs for dinner. The thought of eating processed meat again makes Spencer's stomach churn. She offers to pay him for babysitting and he refuses. He's been working since he turned 14; he doesn't really need the money and he knows his mom would be mad if he accepted it.

Uncle Eddie hangs around the car, struggling to fix his tie in the mirror. He glances nervously at his watch. Their reservation is in an hour, and the restaurant will not hold it. Spencer's parents kiss the twins goodbye. His mother tells him she's proud of him. He's not sure why being the chump who gets stuck babysitting is anything to be proud of. The parents leave. Evening is coming and the first faint stars dot the sky to the east.

Christina carefully colors a picture of Hello Kitty while Spencer boils water for the hot dogs. The twins are playing Pokemon on their Game Boys. Spencer thinks about texting Ryan but he's really got nothing to say. He could text Brent just to say hello, but Brent is madly in love with his new girlfriend and spends ninety percent of his time with her. He feels so completely sundered from the rest of humanity. That's a stupidly dramatic thing to think, but Spencer is not close to many people. Only Ryan, really. And if he thought that Justin wanted ... If he thought that was a sign of change, he knows he was badly mistaken.

Spencer opens a can of baked beans and dumps them in a pot. He feels kind of shaky, unsteady on his feet. He sits down next to Christina and watches her color. Hello Kitty is orange and purple, but she is doing a good job. She hasn't gone outside the lines at all.

"That's awesome," he tells her.

"Kitty is from Jupiter," she tells him solemnly. "She's a princess."

Spencer grins. "Princess Kitty of Jupiter. Very exciting. What is she doing?"

"Coming to Earth to find a prince," Christina says. "She couldn't find one in outer space."

Spencer nods. He would go as far as that to find someone, if he thought that he'd have any luck.

The water is boiling. Spencer drops the hot dogs in and then fishes them out with tongs. The twins only begrudgingly put down their video games to eat. Spencer cuts Christina's hot dog into slices and cajoles her into taking a bite. Justin and Drew emerge from their cabin, showered and dressed. They help themselves to dinner. Justin is wearing a white v-neck shirt. He stares at his plate and eats quickly. Spencer remembers marveling at the softness of the skin over his clavicles. Those still, calm moments have faded into vagueness like a dream.

Drew scarfs down his food and twirls the keys to his mom's SUV on his index finger.

"We're leaving," he announces. "Don't burn anything down."

Spencer frowns. "I won't."

He glances over at the car. Justin is standing by the passenger side door, arms crossed. He looks up at just the same moment. Their eyes meet. Justin smiles, weakly and then looks away. That's it; no sparks, no magic, just nothing. Drew climbs into the car and slams the door. He revs the engine and throws the car into drive, kicking up dirt as he speeds away.

The twins finish their dinner and announce that they're going into their cabin to watch a DVD. Spencer makes them brush their teeth first. He's pretty much the lamest person in the entire world. Christina is still picking at her food. Spencer starts to clean up. Part of him wants to leave all the dirty dishes for the morning, when they'll be some adult's responsibility. He's never been able to obey those selfish instincts. If he leaves the dishes, the food will dry on and be a bitch to get off. It just makes sense to clean them now. Besides, there are animals in the area, and the last thing Spencer wants to do is fend off a raccoon or a rabid squirrel or something.

When he's done he asks Christina if she wants him to read her a story. She shakes her head. Her hair is done up in two French braids, which have started to unravel.

"I'm not done coloring," she says.

"Don't you want to go inside?" Spencer asks. "It's getting cold."

"No," she says. "I like it out here."

Spencer sighs and lights one of the propane lanterns. He makes Christina put on a sweater and gets a sweatshirt for himself. It's always cool at night in the mountains, and tonight especially so. The moon is huge and seems very near, and the sky behind the stars is utterly black.

It's just nine o'clock and Spencer is bone tired. He's never been a night owl; that's Ryan. Spencer's never liked to stay up late, never felt comfortable sneaking out in the dead of night. He feels ill at ease, like he's trespassing somewhere he does not belong. That's not an uncommon feeling for him, really.

He leans back in the camp chair and stares up. He takes out his phone to check the time. There's a fire burning across the lake, hazy and mysterious in the distance. He starts a text message to Ryan, then erases it, then starts another. He's itching to tell Ryan what happened with Justin. He's bearing the burden of his own secret for once in his fucking life, instead of someone else's. He doesn't want to keep it to himself.

Where are you? Already drunk yourself into a stupor?

It's a pretty mean message, all things considered. Spencer knows how hard it's been for Ryan to tiptoe carefully into the world of illicit teenage drinking. He knows Ryan's worst fear is that he'll turn out just like his old man. He thinks Ryan is worried over nothing; he's nothing like his dad, really. But Spencer tries hard to be a good best friend, and he learned early on to humor Ryan.

Christina is looking at him, a crayon clenched in her little hand.

"You're sad," she says.

"No, I'm not," Spencer says, frowning.

"It's okay," Christina says. "A lot of people are sad."

She climbs down from the picnic table and tugs on Spencer's hand. "I'm ready to go to bed now. You can tell me a story."

Spencer helps her brush her teeth and get changed into pajamas. He undoes her braids and waits while she brushes her hair carefully with a pink sparkly comb. Christina is sleeping in a little cot in her parents' cabin. Spencer helps her climb into her sleeping bag and sits down on the floor beside her.

"What story do you want to hear?" he asks. He's got a flashlight in his hands, but it's dark and very quiet.

"A magical one," Christina says, yawning. She's lost the first of her baby teeth and her grin is lopsided. She lays her head down on her pillow.

It's lucky Ryan spent his freshman and sophomore years obsessed with fairy tales.

"Once upon a time there was a king named Bodb Dearg. He ruled over a beautiful green country with a just hand."

"What does that mean?" Christina asks.

"It means he was a good king," Spencer says. "Bodb Dearg was a good king, but Lir, the sea god, was jealous of him. Lir wanted to be king himself."

Christina's eyes are closing. Spencer leans back against the bed. One summer he spent long hours in the library downtown as Ryan poured through mildewed books of these old stories. Spencer doesn't remember many of them, but this one stayed with him.

"To make Lir happy, Bobd Dearg let him marry his daughter, Aoibh. They were very happy together and had four kids. But Aoibh got sick and died."

"That's so sad," Christina says. "I knew you were sad."

"I'm not sad," he says, crossly. "That's just how the story goes. Anyway, Lir's children missed their mother so badly that Bobd Dearg gave Lir his other daughter, Aoife, for a new wife."

"My mom says that women can marry whoever they want. How come he just gave his daughter away? Was she mad?"

"I don't know," Spencer says, after a moment. "I guess it was a long time ago. Do you want to hear the rest of the story?"

"Yes," Christina says. "It's a weird story."

"You're a weird kid," Spencer says. "So it's perfect."

She sticks out her tongue. The wind has picked up; Spencer can hear it whistling through the trees. It seems later than it is, with the strange white light of the nearly full moon shining through the windows and the silence falling heavily on the empty cabin.

"Aoife grew jealous of Lir's children. They were beautiful and smart and they loved their father very much. She was so jealous of them that she turned them into swans."

Christina's eyes are closed. Spencer's almost sure she's asleep. He gets to his feet slowly and startles when he feels her soft hand on his arm.

"Will you stay here until my mommy gets back?" Her voice is tiny and worried.

"Okay," Spencer says, after a moment. He pulls a blanket off the other bed and sits back down. Christina's breathing is steady, and she is still. He takes out his phone. It's quarter to ten. His parents should be back soon. He pulls his knees to his chest. He is thinking of all the people out in the night having a good time, all the people for whom the dark is not an impediment. Sometimes Spencer gets into a way of thinking about things that makes everything seem like the most dire omen. He might have learned it from Ryan. It's hard, though, once he gets in that frame of mind, to think that anything will ever be right or good again.

He falls asleep and he wakes with Christina standing over him. Her eyes are huge. The wind is howling, now.

"There's something outside, Spencer," Christina says.

Spencer rolls his neck and yawns sleepily. "There's nothing outside, Chris. You just had a bad dream."

"I didn't have a bad dream." Her voice is strangely desperate, and her hand is tight on his. "There's something bad outside. I just know."

Spencer takes his phone out of his pocket. It's only ten thirty; he must have just dozed off. "There's nothing out there, kid," he says. "Let me tuck you back in."

She goes rigid, and pulls away. "I don't want to," she says. Her eyes are glossy and she shakes. She's really terrified.

He kneels down and hugs her tight. "It's okay, Christina. Listen, you stay here and I'll go see what's outside. I bet it's just the wind."

She nods, and sits down on the edge of her cot.

Spencer grabs the flashlight from the floor and switches it on. He smiles at his cousin, trying to look braver than he feels. It's dumb to be scared but he is. He lingers for a moment with his hand on the door, listening. He hears a noise that could be the scrape of heavy feet over gravel and sand. The moonlight filters through sparse clouds and casts eerie shadows. The air is chill. The light in his parents' cabin is off; the twins are asleep.

He shines the flashlight in a wide arc, and sees nothing. He should go back inside and go back to sleep and wake in the morning with a lesson learned: no more scary stories before bedtime. He should, but he too can sense some strange and biding presence, something unseen but watching. He takes a careful step off the porch onto the grass. The lake is choppy. Waves wash noisily against the beach. The fire on the far shore burns low, ruby-red in the distance.

Something clangs loudly near the picnic tables. Spencer's heart stammers fast. It's probably just an animal -- a raccoon or something. An opossum, maybe. They've woken up before to find the garbage scattered through the site, bag rent. Spencer's dad has always maintained that raccoons are among the most clever of animals. The flashlight's beam is weak. There is a rasping sound, something hard scraping against concrete. Spencer holds the flashlight high ... and he sees it. There is some animal, some lurking thing, rooting in the dirt near the cooler.

It moves with easy silence through the dark. There is something unreal about the black-grey ripple of its fur, like it is caught in the unseen current of a fast stream. Spencer takes a step back. The toe of his sneaker catchers a patch of loose dirt. The creature stiffens; one pointed ear rotates towards the source of the noise. It looks up. It's eyes are pale golden disks, pricked with an inky spot of pupil. They are alien and fierce and Spencer cannot look away.

Can't look away. Can't move a muscle. He's bound to the spot by fear or by some magic. He should turn and run back to the cabin, bolt the door and put as many barriers of solid wall and reason as he can between himself and the night. He should go make sure Christina is safe, because he is filled with a terrible certainty that this thing is here for her. He thinks, what do you want? And he thinks, go away. Go back to wherever you came from, back wherever you belong. Those sulfur yellow eyes widen, and Spencer thinks that there is nowhere this thing belongs, except in the dark and the silence, alone.

Then it moves, so fast. It steps out of the shadows behind the picnic table and it is not the massive, rabid beast Spencer expected. Ribs show under that strange oil-slick coat. It is lean and hungry and it was looking for scraps, drawn by the scent of food. Nothing more nefarious than that.

In the distance, tires rumble over the gravel road. Headlights shine piecemeal through the trees. The wolf-thing darts, fast. It's scared, Spencer thinks. Terrified.

"Wait," he said. There is an open pack of hot dogs in the cooler that will not be missed. He takes a step forward. The wolf must understand, because it waits, teeth bared and eyes shining. He opens the cooler slowly. Much of the ice has melted and he has to fish through a stinking soup. He finds the hot dogs and opens the package with shaking hands. He tosses the wolf a hot dog. It sniffs, hesitant, and than devours it in a bite. Spencer throws another. The wolf's teeth flash as it swallows. Its red, red tongue lolls. Spencer moves forward, just an inch or two, reaching. He wants to touch, just softly, and he thinks the wolf will let him ...

But he makes some mistake, because the creature snarls, low and angry, and lunges. Those sharp incisors pierce the meaty part of Spencer's calf. He screams and falls and the wolf thing runs, until the shadow of its fur is indistinguishable from the other shadows of the forest at night.

Oh god, it hurts. Tears run down Spencer's face as he struggles to his feet. There is blood, seeping darkly and staining his cotton pajama pants. There is blood, but it is less than he expects and as he steadies himself against the edge of the table already the sharp edge of hurt is receding. That, or shock has numbed him, because he feels like he's woken from a dream within a dream.

Wincing, slow and unsteady, he goes to his cabin. He shuts the door tight behind him. As he climbs the ladder to his bunk, the pain sears, hot and horrible. He can hear the car pull up outside. He thinks ... he is tired, all the adrenaline spent The door to the cabin creaks as it opens. It is his mother, face flush and breath sharp with wine. She brushes the hair back from his forehead. Her hands are cool and soft and he thinks surely she'll be able to feel him tremble. She cups his cheek, caressing. Her eyes close and open. Silent, she leaves.

It is a night of uncertain dreams and sudden wakings. When he closes his eyes he is running through the forest, driven by hunger, aching with guilt. When he opens his eyes he is in the dark silent cabin, alone, but the dream lingers. He feels the terror and the hunger and the utter loneliness that the creature feels. These are feelings that are not unknown to him. Daylight, when it comes, leaves him blinking and watery-eyed. He turns and turns in the sweaty sheets, too warm and tangled. The wound on his calf hurts. His whole body aches. The previous night is dim, strange, fading. He was .... what? Attacked by a rabid wolf? That seems impossible. It's like he's forgetting something or that there's some key to understanding he's missed altogether.

The camp is waking. The percolator whistles on the stove. The doors of the other cabins open and close. The little kids giggle. A motor sluggishly starts. His mother comes to check on him.

"Spencer," she says quietly. "You slept through breakfast, honey. Are you okay?"

"Don't feel good," he mumbles. His throat is sore, and his voice sounds strangled and strange. She presses a hand to his forehead.

"You're warm, but you're not burning. Do you want some Tylenol?"

"Just tired," he says. His eyes close.

She purses her lips. "Okay, but if you've still got a fever this evening I'm going to see if I can't find a doctor in town ..."

"No," says Spencer, unexpectedly fierce. "I'm fine, Mom. I just need to sleep."

She looks skeptical, but she leaves him alone, pressing a kiss to his fever-hot forehead before she goes.

It is the longest day imaginable. Each hour stretches tediously into the next. The pain grows. Every movement is like torture, accompanied by a new ache. Every noise echoes loud and hollow. Sweat gathers on his forehead, on his back, in the hollow of his throat. Spencer feels like he is waiting for something -- the abatement of pain, or something else. He is running, heedless of his seizing muscles, heedless of the reaching clutching branches that catch his fur. There is no reason, no goal, just the thrill of speed and freedom and the irrational hope that one day he can outrun the pain ... Violet and orange shapes careen together on the back of his eyelids. He breathes in, deep. The air is hot and stale. The cabin doors open, and Drew and Justin stumble in.

They're talking to loudly and moving too quickly and Spencer's stomach turns over. He rolls onto his back and drags his pillow over his eyes. Drew laughs, says something that could be an insult. Spencer hears words but he can't tie them into sentences. He is stifling. He flings the pillow against the wall and breathes in a deep breath of air. There is a sudden, sharp pain in his temple, throbbing. He rolls onto his side. It throbs more strongly.

Justin and Drew are staring at him.

"Dude," Drew says.

Justin cuts him off. "Are you alright?"

Spencer's throat is so dry. He can't make himself reply. Drew and Justin glance at each other, and drop their bags. They walk towards the door and don't look back. He is alone again.

It gets worse all day. Terrible pains run up the back of his legs and into the base of his spine. There's no way to lay that is comfortable, no noise that doesn't make his head pound, no light that doesn't burn his eyes. He is sweaty and chilled, and his skin feels hot and tight when he covers his eyes with a heavy hand. There is no relief. When he closes his eyes he is the wolf.

He falls into a dreamless sleep. He hadn't hoped for such relief but he wakes up slowly, pushing up from the somnolent depths. All his muscles are sore, begrudgingly aching as he sits up. His head, finally, is clear. The ache is gone. Except for the stiffness, all the pain is gone. It is night, again. Drew is snoring loudly in his bunk. A moth flutters by the lantern. One of Justin's arms hangs off the side of the bed, knuckles brushing the floor.

Pale moonlight shines through the window.

Spencer climbs down from the top bunk. Justin makes an indistinct noise, but he does not wake. The cabin door squeaks. Spencer doesn't bother with shoes. The grass is dewy underfoot. The moon is rising over the mountains, beautiful and full. Everything is still; everything is silent. Spencer's parents are sleeping soundly in their cabin. His sisters sleep beside them. Christina is tucked in her cot. He's here with almost all of the people that he loves. He's here with nearly all the people in the world that give a shit about him, and he feels like he's standing at the edge of a precipice. He could walk off the edge and vanish and not be missed.

There is something about the way the moonlight shines on the water that makes him need to take a closer look. The water is cold. The sand is rough underfoot. The bottoms of Spencer's pants are soaked, clinging to his ankles. He is standing knee deep in a cold lake in the middle of the night. He closes his eyes for a moment and he thinks of Ryan. He wonders where Ryan is, what he's doing. He hopes Ryan is thinking of him.

The door to one of the cabins opens and shuts. Spencer turns fast and looks back at the shore. His little cousin is standing there. Her dark hair is loose and streaming.

"Spencer? What are you doing?" she asks.

Spencer blinks. He cannot think to answer her. Words won't come. He stares at her, helpless, and then he runs.

He runs faster than he knew he could. His feet hurt but he doesn't care. He heads for the trees; he knows there's safety there, shadows where he can conceal himself. He stumbles a few times, and his chest aches. He should tire; he's never been very athletic. He failed the mile run every year in grade school. He should tire, but instead it's like his body means less. It matters less. He doesn't slow even as his thighs start to burn. He is running through the moon bright forest as fast as he can manage and he is leaving behind all the things that hurt him, all the careless painful things that stung his heart and made it break. He is running faster than should be possible, and the night is brighter than it should be. Every falling leave is audible. The clean mossy odor of the forest is strong. He closes his eyes and something shifts:it is like the glorious easy glide of diving into a deep pool. He moves smoothly through the night air, plunging into some strange and unfamiliar world. He is weightless. When he opens his eyes it's like he's woken into a new dream. He is the wolf. He runs.


	2. Autumn

There is a food smell coming from the dumpster. It is not a wholesome smell. It's not terribly compelling, not like the strong salty delicious smell of cooked meat that permeates the air for yards around a McDonalds, for example. This is the smell of spoiled produce, of stale bread, of rotten eggs all dumped together and baked in the hot, late September sunshine.

Still, his mouth waters.

He crouches under an empty trailer, abandoned long enough for weeds to grow up all around. It's a good place to hide. People don't come back here, don't want to rummage around in the refuse behind a grocery store. It's a haven for cats. The sharp stink of their urine is everywhere, but they smell him too, and they stay away.

He has learned patience. He rests his head on his paws and he closes his eyes. He won't sleep. He is listening. He has learned to distinguish the sound of approaching human footfalls. In those first weeks, when he ran as fast and as far as he could each day without reason or purpose, escaping from something he couldn't name, he had thought that he would be hunted by other animals: bears, mountain lions, buck deer with sharp, piercing antlers. He picked up strange scent trails and some new part of his mind knew which was moose, which fox, which raccoon. He understands now that animals stay away, for the most part. The only animals he has to be wary of are humans.

Not two days ago a man found him digging under the wire fence of a tiny chicken coop. A handful of fat dumb birds nested inside. They would have been easy prey. The man had a heavy, long-handled shovel in his hands, and he swung. The farmer missed by inches. If the blow had landed, his back would have been broken.

He is not human -- not entirely, not any more -- but he is still learning how to be a wolf.

The last two days he's skulked and crept and kept hidden from sight. He drinks from fetid puddles and the hunger caged in his belly rattles his ribs. Now, he waits until nightfall, when he will feast on rotten food and sate his hunger.

In a way, that is the only thing that matters. If he cannot find food and water, he'll die. It's a simple ultimatum, and one that leaves him very little time to worry about anything else.

Still, when he's waiting, his mind wanders. He remembers everything, in the way one remembers a dream upon waking. Some days the clarity is perfect, and his heart aches. His parents -- god, what must they think? The sheets were bloodstained. His cousin Christina must think he went crazy. His poor sisters. And Ryan -- the pointless, meaningless cruelty of that last text message eats at him. Now, he can never take it back, never explain that he was just frightened. It's fucking miserable, but still he knows he can't go home to them. He's different now. He cannot explain and they wouldn't understand.

He has been badly tempted. The worst time, he was sleeping, curled tail to nose, in the thick reeds edging a water drainage area at some standard suburban mall. He was full and content, courtesy of a discarded bag of popcorn he'd found outside the movie theater. The parking lots were empty, the shopping masses had gone home, and yet it was somehow comforting to look up and see on the marquee the names of all the latest brainless blockbusters.

He was woken from his sleep by a strange rushing noise. His ears pricked forward, and he breathed in deeply, but the air didn't smell like rain. He crept forward, careful to stay under the cover of the reeds. In the parking lot, silhouetted under the sodium lights, three boys were messing around on skateboards. They wore skinny jeans and their carefully flat-ironed hair was dyed black. One wore a Fall Out Boy tee shirt. They proudly bore the badges of suburban disaffection. They made him miss Ryan so badly he thought his heart would break.

It has never been worse than it was that long and awful night, which had been far worse in its own way than any of the hungry, cold nights that had proceeded it. He dreamed of waiting, quiet and still, in Ryan's yard, pressing his wet nose into Ryan's hand, wrapping his arms around Ryan. Everything was jumbled up in his head. For almost as long as he could remember, Ryan had been the center of his life. As surely as the moon revolves around the earth, almost every action -- almost every thought -- was undertaken with an unconscious awareness of Ryan, of what it would mean to him, of how it might hurt or help him. In one instant, the bond that bound them together was severed. He has been knocked out of his familiar orbit to drift in an empty, lonely place.

The afternoon passes. Cars speed past. A few curious birds perch in a stunted tree and tweet in greeting. He's not suddenly Doctor Doolittle, but he usually has a sense of what the chirping or hissing or barking means. They flit down to the ground to splash in the shallow puddles. The shadows grow longer. Two men carry out dozens of cardboard boxes. With undue enthusiasm they slice the boxes open with Stanley knives and flatten them. He crawls further into the shadows under the trailer, worried that they'll see him.

It is well after midnight before he feels it is safe to creep out into the open. The streetlights flicker. The roads are silent. The door to the supermarket has been locked, and all the carts corralled. There is only a lingering trace of human scent, and it is smothered by the rich rotten smell of the dumpster.

He arches his back and stretches, easing all his cramped muscles. He is not inclined to be awake at night, and he blinks sleepily. His vision is a marvel: the world is bright and silvery even on a nearly moonless night. Those first few days, his new senses had seemed nearly hallucinogenic. Everything was washed out and pale, but he could follow the movement of a tiny bug out of the corner of his eye. And the smells -- they were constant and overwhelming and they told him so much.

Still, there are limitations. He stares up at the dumpster. He can jump, and he might be able to brace his paws against the top, but he's not tall enough to push the lid open. There are disadvantages to being a quadruped. He circles, uneasily. He could leave and look elsewhere for his dinner. There's an empty lot across the street and he can smell, faintly, the scent of mice and squirrels. But he is still learning how to be a hunter, and it will be a challenge. It's been a day since he's eaten. He makes up his mind.

Shifting -- he can't think of anything else to call it -- doesn't hurt and takes only an instant, but he hates it all the same. It's like waking up. It took him days to figure out how to do, days in which he ran, wild with animal terror, and felt his human self get left further and further behind. He had been exhausted and half starving when he had taken refuge from a storm under the porch of an abandoned hunting cabin. Soaked and frightened, he'd closed his eyes and imagined that he was curled up in his bed with Ryan, waiting out some summer thunderstorm, counting out the seconds between the flash of lightening and the accompanying peal of thunder to figure out how far away the storm was. Ryan's dad has taught them that trick. The memory was so clear that he could even feel Ryan's hand in his.

When he'd opened his eyes, he was human.

Now, it's easy enough. He closes his eyes imagines that he is standing on two feet, that he can feel his hands and fingers close in a fist, feel the cool night air on his bare skin. In a moment, he has changed. He is standing naked and filthy in the parking lot, and he is himself.

All the hurt is more palpable when he's human. His body aches. His knees and elbows are scabbed, and there are cuts on his legs. He's covered in unspeakable filth and his hair is snarled. He only started shaving regularly six months ago, but already a patchy growth of beard covers his jaw and upper lip. If anyone saw him ... Well, he can't imagine what they'd think. Probably, they'd run screaming in horror.

He pushes open the lid to the dumpster. The smell is thick and rich and revolting to his human nose. He stares down into the dark muck. Flies buzz lazily. Carrots with wilted tops and bruised apples float atop a sea of decayed vegetable matter. A few loaves of bread, blessedly still in their plastic bags, are tossed in one corner. Taking a deep breath, he hauls himself up and over to land ankle deep in a rotten slop.

His stomach turns over, and he thinks that there are definite advantages to doing this as a wolf. His human nose is a crude instrument, but his human sensibilities are hard to subdue. He leans heavily against the side of the dumpster and breathes a few times, willing his stomach to settle. It's disgusting. It's so fucking disgusting, but he's hungry.

He just can't think about it. Can't think about what he's doing as he scans an apple for obvious signs of rot or mold. As long as he doesn't think, he can force himself to keep going. He wishes he'd thought to grab a plastic bag or something, because it's hard holding everything in his arms. He steps on something sharp and recoils. There could be broken glass beneath all the rotten food. There could be sharp, rusted shards of metal that can easily pierce the sole of his foot. He closes his eyes. The dumpster isn't as promising as he'd hoped: he's got a few apples, a potato, a loaf of stale bread. Still, as his stomach rumbles, it looks almost like a feast.

He climbs out. He wants to shift back to wolf, but he needs human fingers to undo the twist tie on the loaf of bread. He is horribly exposed, standing naked in a parking lot in the dead of night. His fingers are clumsy and stiff. His joints ache. He's not sure if it's sickness or dehydration or malnutrition or all three. His mom is a nurse but he never paid attention when she talked about work. The medical profession spooks him.

His mom ... God. He freezes. His chest clenches tight and his shoulders hunch. He can't breath, can't think. He misses her more than he ever knew it was possible to miss someone. He would give anything to be able to argue with her about cleaning his room, to eat the awful mushroom casserole she insisted on cooking once a month even though nobody in the family liked mushrooms. He wants her to wrap her arms around him and kiss the top of his head and promise that everything is going to be alright. He wants all of that.

The tears drip down his face and onto his bare chest, where they leave trail marks on his filthy skin.

He gets the bag open. The bread is a little moldy. That doesn't really dissuade him.

He closes his eyes and thinks about the moon and the night and running through the forest, always running. As easy as that, he is the wolf.

He eats the rotten bread and the smashed apples and the potatoes that have sprouted eyes. He eats until his stomach aches. If there were more food, he would keep eating, but there's not. He is full, now, and sleepy. Clouds move swiftly through the dark night sky. The silence is stifling. His tail droops. He glances around to make sure there's no one watching, hidden in the night, and he sets off at a trot to find some dark hidden place to secret himself.

Most days are the same. When he's near a town, it's easier to move at night. He fights his human instincts and sleeps while the sun is up. Once darkness falls, he sets out to find food, to forage for road kill or garbage. Rarely, very rarely, he lays in wait long enough and is still enough to pounce on some small creature -- a rat or squirrel or tiny fragile bird. The first time he captured a mouse under his heavy paw and watched as its tiny black bead eyes widened in terror he'd been so horrified he let it go free. That was days ago, when he'd been newly changed and less desperate. He doesn't let any thing go now.

He doesn't know where he's going, but he knows he has to keep moving. There is something like a compass in his mind that is drawing him north, always north. He passes through large cities and tiny towns. He spends one night curled up in someone's empty dog house. The foreign scent of the dog makes him nervous, makes the hair stand up on his back, but the roof is solid and shelters him from the cold rain. He leaves before dawn, padding silently through the dewy, uncut grass.

Even thought his days are identical, time is not standing still. The first leaves are yellowed and dropping to the ground. At night the air is crisp and dry. He can sense -- he's not sure what, but he can sense some change in the world. It's not something he can articulate, but everything is getting slower and darker and richer.

He should worry. In two or three months, there will be feet of snow on the ground. He's terrified of what will happen then. His fur is thick, but winters are bitter in the mountain. He doesn't know where he'll go. He doesn't know what he'll eat. All his life he's been a worrier. He should be worried now, but the effort of finding food and clean water and a safe place to sleep every day is so exhausting he doesn't have the energy.

The early fall is a good time. He spend almost a week sleeping in the woods near an apple orchard. At night he searches among the trees for bruised and fallen fruit. He sleeps well, and when he shifts to human to undo the lock on the orchard gate, he feels good for the first time in longer than he can remember.

A river runs fast and cold behind the property. He bathes there, in the early morning. With some scrubbing, the filth sloughs away, revealing pale clean skin. He had nearly forgotten how wonderful it feels to be clean. His chin and neck are rough with beard; he tries to imagine what it looks like, but he is less and less able to picture his own familiar reflection. What he remembers most clearly now are the things he hated: his round cheeks and stubby nose, his stupid freckles. He pictures a caricature, but not one that he recognizes as himself.

The orchard is a good place. He stays, for a while -- not long enough to call it home, but long enough to get comfortable. He is careless, though. After a day of soaking rain, he pads over the bare, wet soil. His footprints are visible in the mud as clearly as if he'd walked through plaster of Paris. The next day men in coveralls and knit caps run chicken wire around the bottom of the fence. It's not enough to keep him out, but it makes him realize his days here are numbered. He catches the scent of something that smells wonderful and follows it to the source; in a clearing a few dozen yards into the woods there's a snare. The wire would wrap hard around the fragile bones in his lower leg. A lump of raw chicken is tempting enough to make his mouth water, but the sight of that metal cable sends a shiver down his spine.

He leaves the orchard and heads deeper into the wilderness. He is moving further and further away from the comfortable, brightly-lit suburbia of his childhood, further away from the world he recognizes.

It is a rainy fall. He forgets what it feels like to be dry and warm. Summers in Vegas -- all hot searing heat -- are a vague dream. He takes refuge when in can in the abandoned burrows of other animals or in tiny natural caves, hollowed out by streams long since gone dry, but many nights he sleeps under the cover of brush, and tiny rivulets of water run off the leaves and soak him. He is getting better about catching mice and birds, but he is almost always hungry.

He is starting to believe that he won't make it through the winter.

Maybe it's always like this. Maybe the werewolf that bit him is just as poorly prepared to survive in the wild. Maybe the guise of animal laid over a human mind is just that -- a guise, a fake, a forgery. For all that he has a wolf's keen vision and fine sense of smell, less than half a year ago he'd been too squeamish to help his mother clean raw chicken for a barbecue. He's not an animal. He's a stupid teenager who wants to go back to his pedestrian life of high school and family. He clings tight to those memories, even though when he was living them he hated it.

Every day he manages to find some food and enough clean water and a place to hide, and things are okay. He is managing. They are okay, until the day he gets hurt. He is chasing a squirrel -- a tiny, bone-thin squirrel -- when he takes a bad step on some slippery rock and he slides. One of his back leg twists, and he whimpers in pain. It takes him hours to slowly climb out of the crevice he's fallen into. The pain shoots up his spine, electric and fierce. He is more tired than he's ever been when he drags himself on his three good legs into a sheltered place beneath a fallen log. It's exposed, more exposed than he would like, but he doesn't smell anything threatening and he is so tired he can't imaging moving a foot further.

He sleeps. All the next day he sleeps. His belly aches. There are some white mushrooms, round and squat, growing on the fallen tree. He sniffs. They don't smell bad, but he doesn't know. He remembers hearing once about a hiker who ate mushrooms to survive when lost in the woods. He can't remember any more where he heard that. He knocks one free with his muzzle. If they are poisonous, he hopes at least it is potent and he goes quickly.

They're not. When, after an hour, he's still breathing, he eats the rest. The next morning, he feels well enough to prop himself up on three legs. Every step is agony, but he needs to find water. His tongue lolls out of his mouth, thick and dry. The muscles in his back seize and ache. It takes all of the day to travel the few hundred yards to a tiny stream that trickles through the rocks.

The next day, he makes it a little further. He eats what he can find. It's harder for him to think, harder to remember who he is. All of that is irrelevant, anyway. He concentrates only on moving as far as he can each day, not sure where he's going, not sure what he'll find. The pain in his leg is less, maybe, but he worries that it will heal twisted and wrong. A lame leg would be a death sentence, out here.

He is always hungry. He hallucinates about his mother's hamburgers and pizza from the place near the mall and ice cream sundaes. Those words aren't even meaningful any more -- not entirely, but he is so hungry it's all he can think of. When he smells smoke, he remembers going to a pig roast for something -- some wedding or party -- and being overwhelmed by the thick stench of roast flesh as they unwrapped the carcass. Then, he'd mimed gagging, ignoring his mother's dirty looks. Now, it makes his mouth water. He doesn't realize he's smelling actual smoke, drifting from the chimney of someone's smoking shack, until he's all but in the clearing.

It's a hunting camp, or something akin. There are a pair of muddy SUVs parked out front, and a line of dirty boots by the door.

It scares him, being this close to humans after so long. He wants to turn and retreat into the forest, wants to hide himself away somewhere they cannot follow. He wants to, but if he does, he will die. He is sure of that. He can feel how his body has gotten weaker, how every day it is harder to get up and keep going. One day he will be too weary, and he will close his eyes, and he won't get up again.

Maybe if he were really a wolf, he would be resigned to that fate, even satisfied with the knowledge that after he passed his corpse would feed the same small scavenging animals that feed him. He's not, though. He is terrified of a solitary, unnoticed death.

If he is going to die, let it be among people. Any people, even strangers. At the end, he wants to remember who he is, even if he is forgotten.

He drags himself onto the porch and paws pitifully at the door. There's noise inside -- maybe a television -- and the clump-clump of someone walking. The door cracks open. A middle-aged man sticks his head out. He's nondescript and bearded. The skin of his face is rough and red.

"It's a dog," he says to someone calling back to someone inside. He steps out onto the porch. "He's got a bum leg, and he's thin as a rail."

The man crouches down and gently places a hand on the twisted ankle. He can't help but whimper. He's lived with pain beyond anything he could have imagined for a week, and he can barely stand it. The man smooths a big hand over his ears. He pushes up into the stroke. It feels good, being near someone, touching someone. It feels right.

"Okay, buddy," the man says. "Calm down."

With no warning, the man eases him into his arms and picks him up, easy as if he were a rag doll. The man carries him into the cabin. It's warm, unbelievably warm. He'd forgotten about the luxury of heat. His eyes are half closed. The decor is rustic and gruesome: trophies of past hunts are hung on the wall. It reminds him of his grandmother's house, and the eerie stuffed birds she'd had hanging on the wall. He hasn't thought about them in years.

The man settles him in a corner, near enough to the stove that he can feel its lovely glow. He feels safe, for once. He lets himself go limp, tail and chin flat to the floor. Another man with a similar cast to his features comes out of the other room.

"Shit," he says. "He's in bad shape. I wonder whose he is."

"We'll have to call around," the first man says. "Terry, get some water for him."

The younger man disappears again. It's hard to keep track of the people in the room. He just wants to close his eyes and go to sleep. When a shallow bowl is placed in front of his muzzle he lifts his head and drinks gratefully. The older man rubs gently behind one ear. His jaw drops open into a smile.

"Poor guy," the man mutters.

Then they leave him alone. He closes his eyes and sleeps for what feels like a very long time.

It's not until the following afternoon that he wakes up. He opens his eyes and for a horrible moment he forgets everything -- forgets the pain and the long long days he spent wandering alone and even nearly forgets the awful moonlit night when he was bitten. He shifts a little and feels the stiffness in his leg and remembers, but it's too late to stop the ache in his chest.

Terry, the younger man from the previous day, is sitting in a chair in front of the stove, watching him.

"Hey buddy," he says, softly. "How are you feeling? I bet you're hungry."

He just barely remembers not to bark. He's a dog. He isn't supposed to understand.

Terry brings him a bowl of beef soup, hot on top and cold in the middle like it's just out of the microwave. It tastes stale and canned and is absolutely the best thing he's ever eaten. He's so hungry and so unused to this ease. Finding food has taken so much time, been such a struggle. He eats so quickly he gives himself hiccups.

Terry grins. "Calm down. Geeze, you're a nice looking dog. Never saw a dog with such blue eyes. Someone's missing you, I bet."

He licks the bowl clean, and keeps licking, like he can extract every last molecule of sustenance. Then he sleeps again.

Later, the man who found him comes back, with a stranger in tow. The new person is older and smells like a barn. He can pick out the scent of three or four different animals on him. He has a bag with him that he sets on the floor. On his knees, the new man crawls into the corner and gently lifts his hurt leg. His touch is firm and sure but very careful. The man opens a bag and takes out a flashlight and shines it right in his eyes. He lifts his lip to look at his teeth. He runs his hands down his sides, over his ribs, and then gets to his feet, wiping his hands.

"He's healthy," the man says. He's a vet -- he must be a vet. "And not too old, either. I bet someone brought him up here camping and he got loose. The leg's just a sprain. It should heal fine on its own in a week or so."

"That's good news," the first man says. "Poor thing looked half dead when we found him."

"He found us," Terry says. "Came right up to the door."

The vet laughs. "Animals will surprise you. Dogs have lived with man for thousands of years. They have an uncanny sense of where to find people. It's their bond with man that separates them from the wolf."

"I really appreciate you coming out," the first man says.

"It's no problem, Mike," the vet says. "You're going to keep him here?"

"For now, yeah," Mike says. "We'll keep him for now."

They take care of him. It is an unforeseen blessing. He has learned how cruel the indifference of the world can be. To stumble upon such compassion now is overwhelming. He could just have easily been turned away. They could just as easily have ignored him. He doesn't know why they didn't. It's harder, now, to remember things like goodness and compassion, all those abstracts that don't have a place in his life any more.

He sleeps and he eats. They feed him dog food. The idea repulses him, but the taste doesn't. Terry takes him outside a few times a day and lets him sniff around the yard and do his business. At first he's embarrassed and conceals himself behind a tree. It's hard to remember what they think he is, and behave accordingly. It's hard to remember what he is now.

Within a few days, he's feeling better. He can put weight on his ankle. He pads anxiously around the house. It makes him nervous, being trapped inside. He could get out easily enough, if he could just change, but he is rarely left alone. Part of him -- the part that misses his mom and his sisters and the soft comfort of a human life -- wants to stay. He could be a pet to these people. He could don that guise. A larger part, though, knows he can't. Really, he doesn't even know if they want to keep him. They're hunters, these men, and when they go out into the field they are gone for weeks at a time. When they go, they won't bring him with them. Maybe they'll leave him with the kind vet. Maybe they'll set him loose. Maybe ... maybe something worse will happen.

That's what makes him nervous. He paces back and forth in front of the stove as the evenings grow cooler and darker. He knows he's been given a reprieve, given a chance to heal and get strong. He needs to head north. He can feel the pull in his bones.

Five days after they find him, Bill and Terry feed him and take him out and then pat his head consolingly before getting in their truck and driving down the curving path, out of sight. They're going to town, to get supplies. In a week, they'll head out to hunt elk. In a week, he needs to make a plan.

They'll be gone for a while. He overheard them talking; it's an hour drive into town. He waits a few minutes, and then for the first time in weeks he closes his eyes and wills himself into human form. When he opens his eyes he's disoriented for a moment. The world looks much different, standing on two feet.

He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to eat their food. He can watch television just as easily as a wolf. He ought to unlock the door and head outside and be on his way, but can't yet. After he leaves them he will be alone again, completely alone. He isn't ready for that yet.

He goes upstairs, thinking he can get a better sense of his surroundings from the second floor. There's a mirror in the hall, and he catches sight of his reflection out of the corner of his eye and ... he freezes. He doesn't recognize the person he sees. A thick beard covers his chin and neck. His eyes are shadowed. His cheekbones jut, gauntly. He looks old. He looks tired. He looks so different that it's almost like he's seeing some other person, someone not himself.

If he went home, would his family even recognize this man? The face he remembers as his own was young and soft, a child's face. He's grown, these last few months. More than is normal, maybe. He's taller. He's unfamiliar with the length of his limbs. There's an electric razor in the bathroom. He trims the coarse growth of beard with nail scissors, brushing the hair into the toilet, and then shaves carefully. It's not something he has much practice with. It's not something he'd needed to be practice with.

Shaving doesn't help, though. The sharp angle of his jaw is new. The shape of his face has changed. He could pass for twenty one, now. Ryan had gotten a fake ID the prior spring, purchased from a seedy shop in a bad part of town. He'd made a few tentative forays into the world of underage drinking. Spencer hadn't bothered. There's no way anyone would have believed he was twenty one. Now, he wouldn't even be questioned.

In spite of everything, he'd kindled some tiny hope that maybe -- some day -- he could go home. Maybe somehow he could get his life back. He has been irrevocably changed, yes, but maybe he could slot himself back into the safe rhythms of life in Summerlin, somehow. He stares at his reflection in the mirror and sees a stranger and he realizes that will never happen. He can't go home. He's not that person, any more. Whoever or whatever he is won't be welcomed. He would be a cruel reminder of the boy that had disappeared.

He cleans up the bathroom and shifts back. He could stay human, but there's no point. He goes downstairs and curls up next to the stove and sleeps. Terry and Bill come home, laden with supplies. They sit at the kitchen table that night, planning. They're leaving in a week. They glance sidelong at him as they kick around ideas about who they could ask to take care of him while they're gone. They don't realize that it won't be a problem. He's leaving.

He waits until the next night. He eats well that day. He's overfull, but it's a luxury he'll indulge in while he can. Terry and Bill spend most of the day washing equipment in the yard. They scrub and water puddles and turns the yard to mud. He lays in the cool sunshine and watches the pretty way the spray from the hose catches the light. He'll miss this house. He'll miss them.

The door is locked. They keep the key on the mantle. He waits until they go upstairs to go to bed, and shifts to human to get down. The door swings open easily. Outside, it's tar black to his human eyes. He sets the key back on the mantle and steps outside. He walks a few yards into the woods and shifts back. The murky night resolves into coherent silver shapes. The shuffling of voles under the litter and the silent rush of an owl in flight are familiar noises. He doesn't know where he is headed, but he feels like he's where he belongs. He sets off at a trot, until the smoke streaming from the cabin's chimney is a tiny, tiny blur on the edge of the sky.

He manages, for a while. He travels until he finds some safe sheltered place, and then he stays there a few days. His days are monotonous and long. He avoids roads, avoids power lines, avoids any sign of humans. He can pretend it was always like this, if he tries. He can pretend he never knew anything else.

The cold is a startling thing. He wakes one morning, maybe two weeks after he left the cabin, to find that every branch, every leaf, every thread-thin blade of grass is sugar-glazed. His breath is a hot, white cloud that drifts upwards. The frost burns the pads of his feet. It's like the other animals -- the real animals -- saw some sign that he missed; they're gone. He spends a long time that day looking for something to eat.

As the autumn fades into winter, things get hard. He used to love this time of year. He got two weeks off of school for the holidays, and his family took a weekend trip to the mountains to pick out a Christmas tree. The night they decorated the tree was always one of his favorites of the year. When he was a child, he'd wished and wished for snow. Every year he dreamed that he'd wake up Christmas morning and look out the window to see the yuccas in the front yard covered in white. Now, he dreads it.

The day it snows for the first time the sky is pale gray and flat. He is walking down a mostly dry stream bed, hoping he can find a frog, or some poor fish, floundering in a much diminished puddle. He sees something squirming in the mud, and freezes. He can stay so still now, if he needs to. He is watching, when he notices movement out of the corner of his eye. He yaps, startled, and looks up. It's snowing. Tiny white flakes drift slowly down through the nearly bare branches.

He's never seen snow before.

It's nice, that first day. It's nice to watch the snow fall and cover the ground with a fragile crystal lace. He never finds any fish in the damn stream, but he doesn't mind being hungry so much when he can run through the forest snapping at the falling snow.

The novelty wears off, quickly. After a few days of clear weather, there's another storm. This one moves in quickly from the west. The wind howls and tosses the falling snow carelessly. His eyes water and his nose burns from the cold. After a few hours of snowfall, the snow covers the ground. His fur is wet and matted. It's hard to find shelter when he can't see more than a few feet in any direction. The cold makes him shake. Nearly spent, he curls up under fir tree, hoping the thick green branches will keep the worst of the snow off him as he sleeps.

When he wakes in the morning, the world is transformed. Everything is smooth and lovely and white. When he stands, the snow comes up to knees. It's hard to smell properly; all the pungent scents of the forest are masked. It's only a small consolation that he doesn't have to worry about water, as long as there's clean snow on the ground.

Things get much harder after the snow falls. It's difficult to find food. Some days he finds nothing at all, and he tries to sleep and ignore the hollow growl of his stomach. When he does find food, it's never enough. He gets weaker, slowly. Sometimes he thinks it's his imagination, that he's so certain he's going to meet an early end that he imagines death upon him before his time.

He's not making it up. Every day he the distance he travels is a little less. Every day he feels a little worse.

It's hard to remember things, now. He knows that his life wasn't always like this. His whole world wasn't as small as cold and hunger and darkness, once. He just can't remember what things used to be like, not very well. He dreams of people that he cared for once, but it's hard to put names to the faces. That life is fading. In the increasingly rare moments when his mind is clear and he is lucid, he realizes he's forgetting everything that once mattered. He's forgetting who he is. If he does -- when he does, he'll be animal through and through.

When the cold is bitter, his ankle hurts him still. It's healed well enough, but when the air is so cold that the trees steam and the streams freeze solid, it aches and aches. He's not as good at ignoring the pain. Maybe it's just that it's so much worse, now. Every part of him hurts a little bit. The pads of his feet are brittle and cracked. Each step brings with it an accompanying moment of agony. When he does find something to eat -- some dead creature kept from rotting (mostly) by the cold -- his stomach throbs and twists. His eyes water, dazed by the brilliance of the sunlight shining on the snow. Each day when he finally realizes he can go no further and finally lies down and shuts his eyes, the darkness is like a balm. He welcomes it. He dreads waking up.

He passes over a high ridge. The trees grow stunted and twisted by the wind. He stands at the top and looks down at a secluded valley. There are no roads, no telephone wires, no sign that there are any men here. A lake glistens coldly at the far end. It looks like as good a place as any he could go, so he heads down.

The second night down the side of the valley, the storm hits. As bad as the weather has been, he is not prepared. The clouds are dark and evil as they blot out the sun. The winds are furious. The snow is wet and it stings. He hasn't eaten in three days, and he can barely make himself take one step, and then another. The world is an undistinguished horror of darkness. There's no up or down. He isn't even sure he's headed to the safety of the valley. He could have gotten turned around in the confusion of the wind and snow. He could be going any direction at all, for all that he can tell the difference.

He wants to drop down to the ground and close his eyes and let the snow bury him. He would welcome that, but something makes him keep going. There's some odor, tremendously strong and compelling even through the blizzard, that smells like home. He doesn't know what that means, but he knows that if he can get to the place he will be safe. It is the smell of his mom's sugar cookies and the familiar smell of freshly laundered sheets and he doesn't even know what that means but he knows it's good.

He presses through the darkness. Snow melts when it hits him and then freezes on his fur. He is so tired. The smell is stronger. The terrain is rough and he is so stiff with cold that he can barely lift his legs to step onto the next rocky ledge. The wind is roaring, but he imagines he hears a different kind of howling. He slips, skidding back down a smooth rock face, slick as ice. His legs burn as he climbs back up. His eyes are barely open. He pants, chest burning, as he reaches another plateau. Ahead of him, there is only darkness.

For a moment, he thinks he's reached the place he will die. Then he realizes that the dark shape looming through the snow is the mouth of a cave. Unsteadily, he walks forward. The smell is very strong here. It's not warm in the cave, but it's sheltered. The floor is dry and sandy. He smells something ... he can't think. Everything hurts. His ears still ring and he is dazed. He closes his eyes and collapses to the floor, grateful for a reprieve, even if it is only temporary.


	3. Winter

Spencer does not know where he is when he wakes. He is stiff. His head aches. He is lying his back in some soft nest, cradled. The air is smokey and fragrant. For an instant, he is in Ryan's room, on Ryan's floor, breathing in the stinking scent of the incense Ryan bought from a hippie shop near the strip. He shifts, sprawling, and his hand brushes something cold and damp, something hard as stone ...

The cave. He is in the cave where he took refuge from the storm. He's alive, and he is human again, somehow.

He sits up, too quickly. His head spins. He props himself up with one arm. He's further back from the mouth of the cave, but the light from outside is brilliant and clear. The storm has passed. His chest aches. A bundle of herbs tied with a bit of coarse string smolders a few feet away. His head feels heavy and every reaction seems stifled and slow. He blinks a few times. Against the far wall of the cave, sitting cross-legged and still as a statue, a young man with an unruly beard watches him. When he realizes Spencer has noticed him, he smiles.

"You're awake," the man says. "That's awesome."

Spencer tries to speak, but coherence is beyond him. His voice is a tiny, choked thing, long unused. It feels like some critical part of his mind that connects the words he's thinking with the mechanism for speech has gone missing. He wants to demand answers, but he just ends up stammering.

"Calm down, buddy," the guy says, rising. He wears filthy, tattered jeans and a torn Pink Floyd tee shirt -- not exactly the best clothing for mountaineering, but at least he's dressed. Spencer realizes belatedly that he is naked. His cheeks flame. He hunches his shoulders.

The guy crouches by his side. "Easy," he says. "You were pretty out of it. It might take you a little while to get your voice back." He bites his lip. "To be honest, I wasn't sure if there was anything left of you in there at first."

Spencer tries to speak again. He closes his eyes. It is cold, and the skin on his arms prickles in goosebumps. An intense point of pressure builds and pulses right behind his eyes. He feels the man's hands on his skin, easing him down.

"Okay," the man says, voice soft. "It's okay. Just go back to sleep."

To protest without words is impossible. His limbs are lax and unresponsive. He breathes in; his bed of rags and pine boughs is fragrant and soft, and it is so easy to let himself settle back, supine, into sleep.

He wakes again, and it is night. A fire sputters near the cave mouth; Spencer's caretaker sits beside it, a shadowed shape cut into the dark night. Spencer sits up. He feels better, less like his body is about to fall to pieces, but his throat is very dry and there's a tight knot of hunger in his belly. He stands slowly, unsure if his legs will bear his weight. They do. He takes one uneasy step, and then another, towards the heat and light of the fire.

The man looks back over his shoulder. "You don't have to get up," he says, smiling.

"Who are you?" Spencer croaks. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, hey," he says. "There you go. You're back in business with the whole talking thing. You were so far gone I didn't know if I was going to be able to get bring you back, or what you'd be like if you did come back. I had to dose you with aconite. You've been out for a week."

"A week?" His throat aches and it's hard to make his mouth form words. "Aconite?"

"You're lucky it wasn't longer. You heal quickly," the man says. "You must have been traveling as a wolf for a long time. The pack wanted to kill you; they didn't think you could be saved."

Spencer's eyes go wide. "The pack ... You're a ...?"

The man goes pale. "You didn't realize...? What pack are you from? Where are you from?"

Spencer frowns. "I'm not ... I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a pack. I didn't even know ... The only other werewolf I ever saw was the one that bit me." The effort of producing so much legible speech leaves him panting and breathless.

The man looks stricken. "Shit," he says. "How long ago were you bitten?"

Spencer closes his eyes. "What month is it?"

"January."

It seems impossible that it's only been five months. He's lived an entire life in that time, lived enough that his old life has faded into irrelevance. He closes his eyes. For his family, the pain must still be raw and new. He'd almost forgotten ... In the weeks before that last storm, he'd almost forgotten everything. "I was bitten in August," he says at last.

"This August?" The man says, confused. "But how ... How old are you?"

"Seventeen, now," Spencer says. "Yeah. This past August. I was camping with my family and ..." He looks down. He doesn't know how to explain what happened that night. He doesn't know if that poor creature he saw had understood how badly he wanted anything other than that life he had been living. He doesn't understand how he'd been so careless with what he'd had -- he'd do anything have it back now.

The man frowns. "You're not kidding, are you?"

"No," Spencer says. "No, I'm not kidding. I don't understand ..."

The man smiles. "It's cool," he says. "But sit down. You look like a strong breeze could knock you over."

Spencer sits, slowly.

"I'm Jon, by the way" the guy says. "I was out hunting and I'm smelled your scent. I figured I better come up here to check it out, since the storm was not the kind of thing you really want to be out in. Good thing I did."

He smiles.

"Thank you," Spencer says, slowly. "I thought I would die."

"You almost did," Jon says, voice low. "You were barely breathing and half frozen. And even after I got you warmed up, I wasn't sure how much of you there was left. Even with the aconite ..."

"Wolfsbane," Jon says. "It turns us back. If you stay a wolf too long, the human part starts to fade ... Aconite brings us back." He shakes his head. "It doesn't always work though. You can go too far, lose yourself completely. I wasn't sure, with you ..."

Spencer breathes in, sharply. It had been close. It must have been close, because he remembers in those last days of coldness and aloneness how alien his human life had seemed, how untrue and unimportant, how even thought and words had started to become foreign ... "Why did you think I was kidding when I said I was bit in August?"

"You're too old," Jon says, frowning. "A werewolf's bite is only supposed to change children ... That's how it's always worked."

"I guess I was young for my age," Spencer mutters. Jon is looking at him like he wants answers, but Spencer doesn't know anything. This entire time he's been running blindly, fumbling through as best he can. He doesn't know why the wolf's bite changed him. He wishes it hadn't. "I should have died," he says, suddenly. It feels it must be true. "You should have let me die." He's not trying to blame Jon, but he just confirms that there's some deep wrongness in what's happened, some transgression against orders natural and unnatural.

"You didn't, though." Jon smiles tentatively. "Listen, don't sweat it for now. You must be starving. You look like you've been living pretty lean."

Spencer crosses his arms over his chest, too conscious of the way his ribs protrude. He has been so hungry for so long he can't remember what it's like not to feel that pain in his belly. "Yeah," he says. "I guess I pretty much suck at being a werewolf."

Jon laughs, cheerful and deep. It echoes in the dark recesses of the cave. He shakes his head. "Dude, you survived on your own for five months after turning into a wolf. That's pretty incredible."

"I just kept going north," Spencer mumbles. "I felt like there was some reason I had to keep traveling ..."

"Maybe you knew this was where you belonged," Jon says. There's nothing obvious about his features that marks him as a werewolf, other than perhaps the beard. He's handsome, but not spectacularly so. He doesn't look sinister or fierce. He looks ... comfortable. Easy. He has a face made for laughter.

Spencer smiles back.

Jon grins one more time, and then pulls his shirt over his head and off. He steps out of his jeans. He's really naked. Spencer stares hard at the sandy floor of the cave. Maybe this is normal for werewolves. He hopes not. He doesn't want to spend the rest of his life embarrassed. He looks up just as Jon has finished shifting; his body blurs, mist-like, and resettles into canine form.

As a wolf, Jon is big. He's a lot bigger than Spencer is as a wolf, even though Spencer probably has three or four inches on him as a human. He's taller and more massive through he shoulders and Spencer is pretty confident that nobody would mistake him for a lost dog. He looks back over his shoulder at Spencer, tongue lolling, and then bounds out into the deep snow.

Spencer gets slowly to his feet. He feels like he's relearning how to walk. The cave is maybe thirty feet deep, narrow at the mouth but widening generously after a yard or so. He doesn't know what he expects -- well-gnawed bones and filth? -- but it's mostly empty. There are a few weathered crates stuffed with dirty rags and a sad collection of broken things: a little plastic toy, the kind that comes with a kid's meal from a fast food restaurant, a few waterlogged books with no covers, and a plexi-glass ski, snapped in two.

Spencer is drowsing when Jon comes back with a plastic garbage bag clenched in his mouth. He drops the bag and shakes the snow off his fur. When he shifts back, his hair is tousled and wet.

"You must be freezing," Jon says, rooting around in the bag. "You get used to the cold, but it takes a while. You're a little taller than I am, but I guess these will work okay." He throws Spencer a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt.

Spencer stares at them dumbly for a moment. It's been a long time since he's worn clothing. It's strange, feeling cloth against his bare skin. He sits down heavily. It's too much. All of this is too much and his head aches and he doesn't even know how Jon knows his name. He wants to close his eyes and wake up alone in a desolate cave. Even if the solitude is unbearable, at least it is familiar.

Jon roots around in the plastic bag and tosses Spencer a little packet wrapped in wax paper. Spencer unwraps it and stares down at it, unsure. It's a few strips of dried meat, he thinks, but as a human he can't rely on his sense of smell to tell him what he might be eating.

"It's smoked elk," Jon says helpfully.

The boy that recoiled from the over-processed frozen food they served for lunch at school wants to gag. The wolf that has spent months eating things he doesn't want to think too closely about thinks that dried elk meat sounds delicious. He chews well to soften it to a texture that he can swallow without choking. It tastes salty and raw and wonderful. His hands are sticky and bits of food stick in the wiry hair around his mouth. Jon is watching him; he should be mortified, but he doesn't care.

Spencer finishes the food. He's still hungry, but it's not an intense, painful hunger. His head has stopped swimming, and he's warm. He leans back on one hand and yawns, hugely. Jon laughs and tells him he should sleep, that he'll heal as he sleeps. Spencer nods drowsily and lays down on his nest of rags; it's the most comfortable place he can ever remember sleeping.

He must sleep a long time, because when he wakes up it's morning. The floor of the cave is ice cold under his bare feet. There are advantages to being a wolf. Jon is sitting near the mouth of the cave again, almost like a sentinel. The morning sky is blue and clear.

Jon looks up at him. "Sleep well?" he asks.

"Yeah," Spencer says. "Thanks."

"You look better," Jon says. "You're not all ghostly pale any more."

"Uh, good," Spencer says. He worries the frayed hem of his shirt. "Is this ... do you live here?"

Jon chuckles, ruefully. "No," he says. "This place is a secret. Just between me and my best friend. The rest of the pack don't know about it. They think we're at the head of the valley, where the river cuts through the ridge."

Spencer frowns. "Why do you keep it a secret? I mean, it seems like a good idea to have places like this where you can go if there's a blizzard or something ..."

Jon makes an unhappy noise in his throat. "It's not ... I keep forgetting you've only been alone so far. Sit down. I better tell you how it is. I can't keep you up here forever. You're going to have to meet them soon anyway."

Spencer sits clumsily. His hurt ankle still aches a little. The high mountain air is thin and he breathes in deeply.

"So," Jon says. "The most important thing to know is that there's only one woman who is successfully turned for every fifteen or so men."

"There are lady werewolves?" Spencer asks, furrowing his brow. "I mean, I've never heard of that on television or in the movies ..."

"And the mass media is clearly your go-to resource for info about werewolves" Jon grins. "Yeah, there are lady werewolves. The second thing you have to know is that the bite only works on kids. That's why when you said that you were turned in August ..." Jon spreads his hands. "It's happened before, I guess, but it's pretty rare."

"Great," Spencer says under his breath. "I'm some kind of a werewolf freak."

"No," Jon says. "It just means ... it means that when a pack decides to recruit a new member, it means they're going to bite a child, probably a male child. The preferred age is three."

Spencer draws in a sharp breath. "Three years old? That's horrible. You're taking babies and turning them into monsters?"

"Hey," Jon says, sharply. "I'm not doing any of it. I think it's awful. I can't stand it, actually. I'm just telling you how it works. You have to know, because this is your world now."

Spencer sets his shoulders, stubborn. "It doesn't have to be," he says. "I could leave. I did okay on my own, until the winter came."

"You're half starved," Jon says. "You wouldn't have lasted another week."

There's no reason that Jon would be lying. Spencer feels the truth of what he says. Still, he frowns. "I could go south. Some place warm where I don't have to worry about blizzards."

Jon shakes his head. "It's better to stay here. The pack is ... we protect each other. You can learn how to hunt and track, not just fumble along. And it's ... it's not the same as family, but it's close."

Spencer closes his eyes. He can picture his house, each detail distinct and perfect. It's changed since he last saw it. It's sure to have changed. Maybe his parents have even moved ... there's no way of knowing. He still loves them so much it makes his heart hurt, and they think he's dead.

"Sorry ..." Jon says carefully. "I know it's still new, for you. I can't even imagine how awful you must feel ..."

"How old were you?" Spencer asks, trying to keep his voice steady. "How old were you when they took you?"

Jon stares at him for a long moment. "I was nine. I was nine years old when I was bitten in a state park an hour from where I grew up. I was with my older brothers. They weren't watching me, and I wondered off ... That's old, to get bitten. I still remember a lot. I had a kitten, named Clover. I remember the way my mom smelled ..." He swallows. "That's the reason it's better to bite them younger. They remember less. There's more time to learn how to be a wolf. You're not ..."

"You're not stuck in the middle," Spencer says, unhappily. He thinks about everything he's lost, all those years of a life he'll never be able to live again. "I understand."

Spencer spends most of the next three days asleep. He's accumulated months of exhaustion. He feels like he could sleep for years and still he'd be tired. Jon doesn't stay with him. He can't stay. He's got responsibilities: he has to hunt, to keep watch. He visits once a day to bring food: more smoked meat and dried apples and once a hunk of coarse bread. Spencer is grateful; he hopes that he's not a burden.

At night, he can hear the pack. Their howls echo, lonesome and terrifying, even though Spencer knows exactly what they are. Jon hasn't mentioned it, but he figures soon enough he's going to have to head down into the valley. Soon enough, judgment will have to be passed. During the day, curled up on his side, barely awake, he thinks about leaving. He is stronger now, and he realizes the error of his ways. It was foolish to follow some unseen call northward; he should have fought his instincts every step of the way. He can travel fast; fast enough to make it south before the next storm? That he can't know. He knows that to get caught in a blizzard like he did is a death sentence.

Ultimately, he's too much of a coward to to take the risk. He'll take his chances with Jon's pack.

He wakes up on the fourth morning feeling better than he has in months. He's rested and calm; he had eaten the night before and slept through the night. He stretches and rolls his shoulder. He's gotten a lot taller since he was bitten. When he'd asked Jon if that was normal, Jon explained that werewolves mature faster than ordinary humans. The life of a werewolf is too dangerous for children; most are fully grown by age thirteen. Spencer has always known he was a later bloomer; still, it is a little embarrassing to realize how much catching up he'd had to do.

He feels good that morning, and outside the snow sparkles cleanly in the sun. The air smells fresh and wet; distantly, he can make out other scents -- other werewolves. Trees are sparse this high up, but they grow thick on the valley floor. The beautiful stands of fir and cedar look like emerald velvet, from so high up. A thin thread of smoke trickles upwards from a spot sheltered between the lake and a sheer cliff face -- that's where the pack is.

He's not sure why he does it. Jon warned him to stay quiet, stay hidden, stay in the cave. He's not usually a reckless person, but the day is so bright and he's spent so long moving only at night. He wants to curl on a sun-warmed rock and let the heat seep into his bones. He wants to run through the snow, following the scent trail of a hare or chipmunk. He wants --

He's shifted into a wolf before he even realizes it. The change requires only the least thought of intention. He huffs in annoyance, but it feels right. His eyesight is sharper and the cold is unnoticeable; his coat is newly thick and lustrous. And the smells -- they're overwhelming. Each is distinct. Jon's -- the strongest of all -- is warm and spicy, like hot tea and wood smoke and cinnamon. And there are others, so many others that he can't distinguish between then. It's wonderful, in a way. He hadn't realized how different it would be, not to be alone.

He means only to explore the area right near the cave. He doesn't stray far -- he can see the dark hole in the face of the mountain. He's spent every moment since he was bitten terrified of what he'd become. For the first time, he thinks that there might be good, too. Maybe this was meant to happen. Maybe he was meant to come here and find the pack. Maybe this is where he belongs. He revels in that possibility, pouncing on invisible prey. He catalogs the odors of each animal. He stays as still as he can and watches as a tiny bird dances to and fro on the surface of the snow. It gets so close he can see each tiny feather.

He stays out longer than he should. He should be careful -- Jon warned him. He is sitting lazily in the snow, tongue lolling, when he sees some fast dark shape rush past, just a blur of motion on the edges of his vision. He tenses, and turns. He smells it, now. He wasn't paying attention, but the odor is overwhelming. Not Jon; this smell is dark and sharp and metallic. The hair on the back of Spencer's neck stands up. He bares his teeth.

There's more than one. He can see them now, lurking in the shadow of the treeline. Of course if he -- turned a half a year ago, untrained, completely unsure of everything -- can smell them, then they can smell him too, have been able to smell him since he shifted, probably. He crouches low. If he can get past them, he can head into the deep forest. Maybe, there, he can find a place to hide.

He springs forward. Just as fast, the wolves leap out of the shadows. There are two, one mottled grey and one black. They are bigger than he is, and they are fast. He breaks into a dead sprint. His throat burns. He is fast but they are faster. He can hear the rough throb of their breath. Smaller, he is more agile. He darts to one side. They skid out in the snow, growling low and ominous. He heads towards the crest of a ridge, thinking he can gain ground going downhill. His injured ankle aches. He's nearly gained the top of the ridge ...

Then there is a heavy weight on his hindquarters and he's tumbling, rolling down the hillside, the black wolf with him. Dirt flies. His eyes are watering, gritty. He blinks, twice and gasps in a breath ... The black wolf is on his feet. Spencer scrambles, but he's too late. The black wolf's teeth close around the nape of his neck. He whimpers and lowers his head, pinned in place.

They drug him. They must shift back to human because he feels a hand close around his mouth. They press something that smells dark and smokey against his muzzles. He thrashes and struggles but even as humans they are strong. They hold him still. The smoke he breathes in makes his vision blur. It burns in his lungs. Blackness encroaches on the edges of his vision. His head swims. His eyes shut once, then open, and then close again. He knows nothing else.

When he wakes, he is human and he is naked and he is curled up on the bare, snowy ground. There are fierce red abrasions on his arms and on his belly. His hips and his legs ache. It takes him a moment to realize they must have dragged him at least part of the way. His skin stings where it's been scraped raw. He sits up slowly, and then tries to stand. He gets halfway to his feet and he falters. He is chained. A short length of rusted chain leads to a shackle that is clamped around his ankle. The other end is looped around a stout metal stake, driven deep in the ground.

A spasm of terror makes him tremble. He takes that chain in both hands and he pulls and pulls, but a week of rest isn't enough to bring him back to full strength. Even if he were at full strength, he doesn't think he'd be able to do anything to get that stake to budge. He's trapped. The shackle is just a hair shy of too tight. His skin is chaffed and raw where it rubs. There's a cut on his belly, deeper than the others and just scabbed over. Every time he moves it threatens to reopen. It is nighttime, now, and bitter cold. He curls his knees to his chest, limited as he is by the chain, and shivers.

His efforts with the chain have an unforeseen effect. Ten minutes pass, and he sees lights flickering through the trees. Dark shapes move quietly. He thinks about shifting, tries to grab hold of the dream of the wolf and the woods, but it's distant and fuzzy. Nothing he can do brings it close and clear enough for him to inhabit it and change.

They're carrying flashlights. It's not at all funny but it looks so absurd he almost wants to laugh. There are five of them, and they are naked and scarred and they do not look anything like Jon -- there is not so much humanity left in their dark eyes. And they carry flashlights. The beams sweep wide and then converge, settling on him, pinning him in a beam of bright light from which he cannot escape.

One man steps forward. He's surprisingly slight, and his hair is dark and straight. He is the worst-scarred; the flesh of his arms and his chest is scored with claw marks, and then scored again. The marks are neat and even -- intentional. He is not a tall man, but the way he holds himself suggests that he is used to being obeyed.

"Who are you?" he asks. His voice is not deep, but it's rough and there is no kindness in his tone.

"I'm ..." Spencer doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know who he is. The thought makes the shaking worse. "My name is Spencer."

"Who made you? Who bit you?"

Spencer's eyes go wide. "I don't know. I was camping and I heard something at night. I went outside and I saw this ... this creature -- the wolf. I thought he was hungry so I tried to give him some food. He ate it, then he bit me." His fingers shake, but his voice is surprisingly steady.

The man snorts. "Don't fucking lie to me. Jon says you claim you were bitten on the last midsummer moon. That's not possible."

Spencer shrugs. "I was," he says. "I wish I hadn't been."

The man's face hardens. "You were given a gift you don't deserve," he says. "If you're telling the truth. If you weren't sent by some other clan, looking for our secrets, jealous of what we've made here."

"No," Spencer said. "I'm not. I didn't know there were ... I never saw another werewolf until Jon found me."

"And he should have left you where he found you," the man says. "He says you were lost and half dead. Our pack has few rules: we don't pretend to be humans, and we let nature take her course." He narrows his eyes and spits on the ground at Spencer's feet. "If Jon had followed those rules, you'd be dead now."

Spencer bows his head, forehead nearly touching the ground. The back of his neck prickles as the cold air hits it. His eyes are clenched shut. His breath is hot and damp.

"What are you doing?" The man's voice is utterly cold.

"Kill me, if that's what you're going to do," Spencer says. "I figured I was going to die. Just don't make me wait any more."

The man laughs, rough. "You're a miserable little mistake," he says. "But I'm not going to kill you. Look at me."

Spencer looks up.

"You're part of the pack, now. You'll listen to me. If you pull your weight, we'll take care of you. If you're not strong enough, we'll let you fail."

Spencer nods, silent.

"This isn't an easy life," the man says. His dark eyes are unreadable.

"I know," Spencer says quietly. He knows that. Before, he was consumed with unabated angst over the most trivial teenage problems. Those preoccupations seem absurd, now.

The man searches his face one last time and turns on his heel. "Let him go," he snarls to one of the other men, before shifting and disappearing into the darkness.

The tension releases Spencer in an instant. He goes limp on the ground. A blonde man with a scruffy beard and a chunk missing from his right ear undoes the shackle. He smooths his hand over Spencer's shoulder.

"I'm Tom," he says quietly. "Jon's friend. Don't worry about Pete. His bark is worse than his bite, as long as you do what he says."

Spencer rolls his ankle, hesitantly. It's stiff and achy, but he thinks it will hold his weight. "Is he ... is he in charge?"

"He's the alpha, yeah," Tom says. "This pack is his."

"His?"

"We listen to him," Tom explains, speaking in an undertone. "When he came, he defeated the old leader. We listen to him now."

When Spencer gets to his feet, Tom wraps an arm around his waist. Slowly, they weave through the trees. In the distance, Spencer sees the dancing orange light of a bonfire, and smells the acrid smoke.

"Jon and I aren't exactly the most popular guys around here," Tom says, under his breath. "We mostly try to steer clear of Pete and those guys when we can."

"Why don't you leave?" Spencer asks. "If it's so bad, why don't you just leave?"

Tom shakes his head, like he's confused. "We can't," he says. "You can't abandon the pack."

"What would he do?" Spencer asks.

"Well," Tom says slowly. "If you left and he thought you were going to go wild -- to live as a wolf, stay as a wolf long enough that the human part of you faded entirely -- he might let you go. But if you left and he thought you were going to go back to your old life ... if he even had the slightest suspicion that was what you were planning, he'd kill you."

Spencer breathes in sharply.

"Yeah," Tom says. He says nothing else.

That first night is long. Jon is waiting for them, dark circles under his eyes.

"I shouldn't have left you alone," he says, when he sees Spencer. "I should never have left you alone."

"It was my fault," Spencer says.

They sit near the fire for a while. The light dances on the snow and throws off enough heat to keep the worst of the cold at bay. There's nothing to say. Spencer is tired. He shifts into wolf form and curls up to go to sleep. Sleep, though, is evasive; he spends a long time listening to Jon and Tom talk in hushed tones and to the distant noises of other voices, human and canine.

When he wakes up in the morning, Jon and Tom are huddled close beside him. He is glad for their warmth.

Life in the pack is tedious. There's nothing to do but hunt and eat and wrestle. Most seem content with that. The first time he sees two wolves crouched and snarling at each other he thinks he's stumbled upon some fight, thinks he ought to go find Jon. His heart leaps into his throat. The darker wolf heaps and grabs the other by the throat. They crash to the ground in a heap. He realizes they're playing only when he sees how their tails wag, brushing wide swathes of ground clear of snow.

It takes a few days, but he realizes most of the pack spend the majority of their time as wolves. He learns to tell them apart by the patterns of light and dark fur on their back and flanks. What time they spend as human, he does not see them. As wolves, they stay as far from him as they can. He's fine with that. He doesn't want to know more than he needs to. Jon and Tom help him. They take him hunting, teach him the language of yips and barks and howls that the pack uses to communicate. He learns the signs of elk and moose -- the shape of their tracks and their scent and tiny bits of fur caught on brambles. He relearns how to move: how to creep unseen through the brush, how to sprint at full speed and leap onto the back of his prey.

In exchange, he tells them about his life.

They are hungry for humanity. He can see it in their eyes. He tells them about computers and iPods and smart phones. He relates as much of the plot of The Lord of the Rings movies as he can remember. He describes in loving detail his once loathed high school. They're fascinated by the mundane ritual of lunch room and gym class. Jon listens wide-eyed as Spencer describes the pep rally where a miscreant from the music department caused havoc by dressing up in a robot costume made of cardboard boxes and running on to the floor during the cheerleaders' routine.

"Wow, high school really is just like an episode of Saved by the Bell," Jon says, wide eyed.

Spencer laughs, a little, but inside he's grimacing. "Not really," he says. "Most of the time it was pretty boring. I guess ... maybe if you were a senior or like, athletic or something, it's more exciting." They think it sounds so great, but he hated it, every minute.

They're sitting on a cliff that overlooks the valley. Despite Pete's menacing words, Spencer has been free to go where he pleases and do as he pleases. He's thankful for that, but he wonders if everyone is watching, waiting for him to make some mistake before they pounce.

"I had two older brothers," Jon says, slowly. "Mike was a freshman when I was ... when I left. I remember watching him get ready to take his girlfriend to the homecoming dance."

Spencer frowns. He never went to any of his school dances; nobody girl had ever asked him, and he'd never been brave enough to risk the shunning that asking another guy would earn him.

"There was this girl that lived on my block, Cassie. For months after that all I thought about was when I'd get to ask her to a dance. How beautiful she'd look."

"I bet you were quite the charmer at ten," Tom says, grinning.

"Girls loved me," Jon replies. "Cassie loved me, anyway."

A raptor wheels overhead, silhouetted against the blue sky.

"Have you ever thought about going to find her?" Spencer asks, cautiously. That question has been burning in his belly since Jon found him.

Jon glances over at Tom, quickly. Something secret passes between them, some unspoken assent.

"We've been thinking about it," Jon says. "About leaving."

Spencer's eyes go wide. "But you said if you tried to leave Pete would kill you ..."

"He would," Jon says. "If he thought you were going back to the human world. If he thought you'd died -- or gone wild -- he wouldn't waste his time with you, then."

Spencer has learned about the dangers of staying in wolf form. Stay too long, and you lose the connection to your human mind. You're trapped forever in the body of a wolf, not aware that you're anything more. He'd come close to that, closer than he liked to think about. Wolfsbane -- an herb with purple flowers that is lethal as a human -- can bring you back, but only so far. That's what Jon had burned, those first nights in the cave. Even then, it hadn't been a sure thing. Sometimes, people changed back physically, but their minds were more than half wolf.

"That wouldn't be easy," Spencer says. Pete is canny, and the pack obeys him completely.

"No," Tom says. "But it could be done, if you were careful."

They say nothing else about it. It's not likely that any other member of the pack is lurking, spying on them, but still, the less said the better. They are not well liked, the three of them. Spencer has learned not to talk about his human life unless they're well away from the rest of the pack.

It's fortunate that the rest of the pack gives them as wide a berth as possible.

One day when Tom is hunting with the pack, Jon and Spencer shift to wolf form and run far and fast through the forest. Spencer knows Jon goes slower than he could, so that Spencer doesn't fall behind. He knows that he's smaller and weaker than a werewolf ought to be; the rest of the pack thinks he's a freak, but Jon is kind and never complains that he has to make allowances.

They splash through the ice cold river. Winter has settled heavy over the land. The snow is deep. They jump and land in drifts that come up to their hips. The freedom is thrilling. When they are tired they settle in a patch of weak sunshine and shift back to human. Spencer no longer flushes beet red when confronted with Jon's nudity. He no longer has the urge to cover himself.

Those private times with Jon are good. He is someone Spencer thinks he could have been friends with back home. That day as they sit in the sun Spencer finds himself telling Jon about Ryan, who he has up until this point kept secret, kept locked inside his heart. But the human mind is slippery and vague, and his memories of Ryan are starting to go gauzy and insubstantial. In telling Jon, he makes them real again.

He relates the epic story of Ryan's battle against his Catholic high school, which kicked him out for wearing eyeliner. He successfully got a third of the junior class to show up in outrageous zombie makeup -- huge black circles painted around their eyes -- for an entire week in protest.

"That's awesome," Jon says. "He sounds like the kind of friend who makes life more exciting."

The force of Ryan's personality had colored Spencer's tepid suburban life vivid and wonderful. Spencer -- boring, unattractive, naive Spencer -- had won the best friend lottery in drawing Ryan Ross, even if it seemed like at the end his luck had worn thin.

"Yeah," Spencer says. "He was an incredible guy. He played guitar and always talked about starting a band. He'd written a couple of songs. They were pretty good. I bet one day we'll see him on MTV."

Jon snorts. "Yeah, just as soon as Pete lets us get DirecTV." He brushes his hair out of his face. "You must miss him a lot."

"I do," Spencer says quietly. "So much. I just hope he misses me."

Jon rests a cautious hand on his shoulder, but says nothing.

Spencer has been with the pack two weeks, although it seems longer. Life has eased into a pattern, even if it chafes. He and Jon and Tom trek across the valley and sometimes beyond. The rest of the pack seem content to leave them alone. Spencer is learning how to hunt and to track. When he's human, he's more aware of the pull of the wolf in his mind. He understands how the others in the pack can let themselves go -- why they spend as much time as possible as a wolf, until their humanity is a thin shell.

Spencer knows that if he talked to that bunch about his stupid little life, about his high school and his childhood best friend, he'd be met with a blank stare, as though he were speaking a foreign language.

He's been with the pack two weeks, and things are good. There is food to eat and safe places to conceal themselves when the weather turns bad. Jon and Tom don't mention their cave -- without being told, Spencer understands that human things like what they've got up there are contraband -- but they tell Pete they're going hunting and they head up to the cave one night, and sit around, clothed and civilized, for all the world looking like a trio of college kids on a camping trip.

Things change slowly, but Spencer realizes it all at once.

The moon is waxing full. Every night the lovely moon is more nearly her perfect round self. The pack is anxious and tense. Tom is edgy. He paces and cracks his neck. At the lake he crosses paths with a man named Michael. Jon whispers that they have some history, some unfortunate grudge. They stand stiff and still and glare at each other, until Tom bares his teeth and growls and then they both shift and are on each other, snarling. Nobody intervenes. In fact, the pack gathers in a wide semicircle around the pair, howling and grinning eerie wolfish grins like this fight is the most entertaining thing they've seen in months.

Maybe it is. Life in the valley is not very stimulating.

Tom ends up with a black eye and a gash across his ribs. Spencer and Jon go hunting for him. His lips and chin are red with blood as he eats. When he hears that Michael has a broken collarbone, his delighted grin is gruesome.

Other things change. Jon sits nearer to him. Jon touches him more often. Spencer feels it too, kind of -- there's a low thrumming under his skin, this barely perceptible current of energy that makes him want to touch and be touched. It doesn't overwhelm him, but he can feel it. Whatever fluke of nature made him smaller and weaker made him less vulnerable to the lunar cycle. Others are less able to resist -- he is walking through the forest when he hears a scraping, scuffling noise. He thinks at first he has come across another fight. He watches the two dark figures from behind a tree. They are pressed against one another, stiff and tense, but they're human -- not wolf. Their teeth are bared as they press their mouths together in a dirty, vicious kiss. They rut against each other in the least gentle way.

Spencer is hard and hot as he walks away, glad that their attention is so occupied that they haven't noticed him. He finds some concealed small place and wraps a hand around his own erection. It's been a very, very long time -- he tugs softly and sharp pleasure races up his spine. When he closes his eyes, though, he thinks not of the two werewolves he saw, rolling in in the snow, leaves and dirt in their long tangled hair, but of Ryan. When he comes, he pictures Ryan's slim wrists, and the outrageous jut of Ryan's hipbones under his parchment thin skin.

It is not surprising when Jon wraps a gentle hand around Spencer's wrist and pulls him close.

"Don't worry about it," he says, murmuring into Spencer's hair. His voice is weightless and easy as ever. "You can't do anything about it. When the moon is almost full, we all feel this way."

Jon's breath is warm and his beard itches a little, but he kisses Spencer like it's a privilege. His lips are soft and his eyes go wide and delighted when Spencer kisses back. Spencer can't tell if his eagerness is feigned or if it is simply the novelty of being together in this way for the first time. The pack is not large -- not even two dozen strong -- and newcomers are rare. He can't tell Jon that for him, this really is the first time with anyone. Near enough, anyway.

The day before the night of the full moon, they sleep curled together. Jon's arms wrap tight around Spencer's waist, holding him in place. Spencer wakes to find Jon's mouth on him, teeth scraping over his collarbones, his sternum. Jon tongues his nipple and he squirms. He rush a hand over Jon's arm; his skin is downy soft and golden in the dappled mid-afternoon light. Jon's scent has faded as Spencer has grown familiar with it; all the smells that overwhelmed him at first are faint and tolerable. With the coming of the moon they take on a new intensity. He is enveloped in Jon's particular spicy odor. He wonders what Jon smells when he presses his nose into the juncture of Spencer's neck and shoulder.

The objective is not release. It's just that as the moon nears full the world is richer and full of more delight. Everything intensifies. Colors brighten. Sounds are loud and distinct even to his coarse human senses. He can hear the insects scurrying under the litter of the forest floor, the faint swish of the pine needles brushing against each other. He cannot imagine what it will be like at night, when the moon is full and he has the keen eyes and ears and nose of a wolf.

It's funny, but he didn't notice the full moon when he was on his own, except in that it meant the night was brighter and he could travel further and easier before the morning. It hadn't been like this -- the world had not bloomed in magical vividness. It makes him nervous -- is it different now? Is he changing? Or in those first days were his hunger and exhaustion so great he didn't have time for anything other than the simple physical trial of pressing on. He wants to ask Jon, but he does not think he would get an answer, not today.

They watch the western sky as darkness settles heavily on the valley. Jon hasn't said a word in hours; as the afternoon waned, his vocabulary has been reduced to grunts and growls. Spencer sits cross-legged, waiting. The woods echo with the uneasy sounds of the pack. The stars seem huge and bright, steady as Christmas lights in their intensity. There is a stillness. The scuffling noises of the waiting pack die down. The silence is like a breath held when the first sliver of the cold moon appears behind the mountains. With surprising speed that sliver of white light grows into a half circle, then larger. Some fierce rapture buzzes at the base of Spencer's spine. As the full perfect moon rises clear of the dark mountains, it swells and fills him, tingling in the tips of his fingers and toes. Someone howls, a low and desperate noise, and that's the trigger. Spencer closes his eyes and the world spins and when he opens them he has changed. Everything is new.

He understands. In that moment he understand the forest washed in pearly moonlight, understands where the small animals sleep and where the birds roost and how the places they nest are right for them. Everything is pieced together. He feels where there are creatures that he could hunt, creatures for whom a quick death would be a blessing. The roll of the wolf is to cull the sick and the old. There is a purpose behind their presence. Everything is joined, and he understands now where he fits.

There is a blur of movement. Jon has changed. His coat glistens silver and unreal, like he's been dusted with gilt. His eyes are dark and they hold no shadow of recognition. With the moon risen and the cold night remade, it is hard to think. Spencer -- the human who he was -- is meaningless in this world, an unwelcome intruder lacking anything meaningful to contribute. The wolf belongs here. Still, the tiny place in the back of his mind where he is still himself recoils to see the blank unknowing glaze of Jon's eyes.

Another howl resounds, echoing across the generous bowl of the valley. Jon looks back at him. There is not any hint of recognition in those black eyes, not a single thing left of Jon's warm smile and sleepy voice. He looks back over his shoulder, and then he bolts. Spencer follows. Fast and silent through the forest they sprint. There is no destination; they run for the joy of it, thrilling in the speed and the effortlessness with which they navigate the night. They hear others, barely audible to their moon-heightened senses. There is no purpose. They run because they are where they belong and it is what they are supposed to do.

The tiny niche in the back of Spencer's mind where he knows himself is draped in shadow. How easy it is to imagine that this is all he has known! The night, and the silvered moon and the sugared stars, glittering sweetly. The trees stand tall and dark and the wind whistles. He is a creature made to move through this dream time forest and he is with his brothers -- it is good. It is good, and then someone catches a scent. A howl rends the night. There is prey nearby. They follow the call. The odor is strong. It is a buck deer, healthy and armed with many-pointed antlers, but tonight they are together and strong and it will not stand up to their strength.

They move like the independent limbs of some massive unseen creature; everyone knows their place. Even Spencer; as long as he releases the rational tiny voice in the back of his mind and listens to the misty impulse that compels him, he moves in harmony with the others. The biggest males hang back; they are not built for speed, but for endurance. Lighter and fleet of foot, the smaller wolves creep near the waiting buck, silent -- nearly silent.

One misstep. Impossible to say even who makes the mistake. The buck startles and stands erect and unmoving as a statue. His black button eyes are wide and gleam in the moonlight. All teeth are bared. All muscles are pulled tight. Each follicle of hair on Spencer's back stands straight up. Then someone snarls. The buck quivers bodily and then bounds high, over the head of the nearest wolf and away ...

Oh, he expends every ounce of strength in his body giving chase. They all do. They must eat and to eat they must kill and this buck deer is their prey. If one wolf falters, the others will continue their pursuit. That is the way it must be. They are nothing by themselves; they are a pack and it is for the pack that they hunt.

The deer is strong and fast. He clears fallen trees that the pack must clamber over or circle 'round. Still, it is their territory. They know the ground. They know every hill and every stump and every crevice. Skillful, they drive the deer nearer and nearer a certain place where the mountains jut forward, where there is a sheer wall of rock where they fence the deer in. They stay close enough to smell the sharp stink of adrenaline and fear. They know and the deer knows what will come. It is inevitable, now.

That tall proud creature is fooled by their maneuver. Backed into a corner, the buck deer stands tall. His head is bowed and his antlers arc gracefully. They are a formidable obstacle, but they can be overcome. Spencer stares into the deer's black eyes; he wonders if this deer has a mate that will mourn his passing, if he has children who will rue his end. And that is wrong -- that's not the right thing to think. Those thoughts come from the part of his mind that does not belong to this night, to this ordained time. That human voice of reason should sleep, should lay quiet and supine until morning comes and there is time for caution and equivocation and the scent of blood and meat and fear doesn't hang so heavily in the air.

It's impossible to say what happens first. Someone moves; like a trigger, the deer charges. A wolf leaps. Jaws clamp onto the deer's fragile leg. It falters. The pack swarms. Sharp white teeth rend flesh as if it were clay. Two wolves snap at each other, each eager to lay claim to the choices bit of flesh. They tear the corpse from limb to limb. Foul excrement spills from split bowels. Blood flows ... blood gushes.

There is blood everywhere. The white snow is spotted with rose red blood. There is blood on his muzzle and his paws and in his nose. It is all he can smell and all he can see and he breathes in deep and ...

It's awful. He freezes. The frenzy does not abate. He is covered in the blood of an animal that in moments is reduced to a stinking, steaming sack of meat. His stomach turns. He backs away from the frenzy. The pack is devouring the kill. He smells only the blood now, only the metallic stink.

Spencer closes his eyes. When he stayed home sick from school as a child his mother sat next to him on the couch, cradled his head in her lap and ran fingers through his fine hair as they watched Bambi.

It was always his favorite Disney movie.

When he opens his eyes, he's human. He stares down at his hands. Blood is soaked into his nails and into all the creases of his skin. He swallows. A wolf whimpers, pitifully, as someone stronger, better, older lays claim to his bit of flesh.

Spencer vomits noisily until his throat hurts and it feels like there is nothing at all left inside.

He does not remember anything else that happens that night.

He wakes up with sunshine in his eyes. He is lying on his back on the ground. When he sits up, all his muscles stiffly protest the movement. He blinks. His throat feels raw and his ears are ringing. He's never been drunk. He steadfastly avoided all alcohol in solidarity with Ryan, but he can't imagine that a hangover is any worse than this.

He brushes his hair out of his eyes. It's gotten cumbersomely long. There must be a pair of scissors around, because Jon's hair is roughly cut close to his head. There's something black on the back of his hand. He scratches with a fingernail, and it flakes away. Blood. There's more, splattered on his arms and his chest. The beds of his fingernails are dark with it.

His stomach goes tight.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Spencer looks up. Pete is sitting ten or fifteen feet away, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes dark. He is clean and his hair is wet.

"When the moon is full, werewolves hunt," Pete says. "We're supposed to hunt. It's what we're meant to do. It's not wrong."

Spencer swallows. His throat is dry. The pack hunted last night but he spent an hour on his knees, heaving up every scrap of substance in his belly. He is thirsty and hungry and sore. Pete hasn't spoken a word to him since the night he was caught. That he's started now is no comfort.

"I didn't say there was," Spencer says, quietly.

"I can see it on your face," Pete says. "You think it's disgusting."

"There was so much blood. I was ... shocked," Spencer says, apologetic. He doesn't know why it's so bad. He gets that he's as much of a fuck up as a werewolf as he was when he was just some dumb teenager. He knows that, but he doesn't know why Pete is watching him with such quiet venom in his eyes.

"You must have been shocked," Pete says. "You must have been pretty goddamn shocked to turn back." His voice is sharp and accusing. He unfolds himself. There is a poorly done and much faded tattoo on his calf that Spencer has never noticed ... How old was he, when he was bitten, to be tattooed?

"I did," Spencer says.

"How?" Pete's eyes are narrow and his body is taut. The tendons in his neck bulge.

Spencer shrugs. "I don't know."

"You have to know," Pete says. He paces. There is much of the wolf in his easy, loping gait. "Tell me."

"I don't know," Spencer says. He's crouching now, and his knees are digging into the rough earth. He wants to bathe in the lake and wash the filth from his skin. He wants to run through the woods with Jon until they are far enough away that they can turn back to human and talk about the forbidden human world.

"You must know," Pete says. He is getting loud. "You have to know know. You don't know how hard I've tried to control it. Every month, I think I can finally bend it to my will, and every month I fucking fail. And you did it without even trying."

"I didn't even mean to," Spencer says, a little frantic. "I was just ... I was scared. All night, I was scared. Jon was ... he didn't know me, any more. It was like he was gone. And I've lost so many people. I was just scared that I would lose him too, or that I would be lost. Then we killed that deer, and all I could smell was blood and all I could think about was my mom sitting with me and watching Bambi ..."

Pete shakes his head, laughing. "You fucking idiot," he says. "You little fucking fool. I should have killed you the day we found you."

Spencer clenches his eyes shut.

"You don't get it, do you?" Pete says. "You're fucking defective. You're not like the rest of us. When the moon is full, we are gone. Last night, there was no Pete, no Jon ... there was just the pack. That's why it's so dangerous. That's why we're out here. When the moon is full, there are only wild animals, wild and eager to kill."

Spencer swallows. "I didn't know," he says. "It was never like that, for me. When I was on my own, I didn't even notice the full moon."

Pete laughs, but he looks shattered. "You don't even fucking get it," he says. He rubs his forehead. "You could go back."

"What?" Spencer doesn't understand what Pete's trying to tell him. He gets that he's fucking deficient, but he doesn't understand why Pete is tense and his lips are white with anger.

"You can control it," Pete says. "You don't lose yourself. On the night of a full moon, you're not going to turn into a fucking monster and tear apart the person you love." He swallows hard.

"Did you ..." Spencer stops himself before the question is asked, but it's too late.

Pete's face hardens. "It's none of your fucking business," he snarls. "You screwed up. You could have stayed with your family. You could have lived a human life. You're a puny fucking runt, and you're a drain on the pack, but I won't let you leave with our secrets."

Spencer hunches his shoulders and ducks his head. Pete bares his teeth. Even human, they are white and strangely canine. He lurches. His fist flies and catches Spencer on the cheekbone. Spencer crumples to the ground. His eyes water. There is dirt in his mouth.

Pete stares at him, eyes all pupil, and then shifts into wolf and lopes away into the wood.

Spencer lays still on the ground for a long time, cradling his aching cheek in his hand. His tears freeze on his eyelashes. He could have stayed with his family. He can control it. He could have stayed and lived a normal life, a mostly normal life with his mom and his dad and his sisters and with Ryan.

His heart has hardened to a tiny shriveled ball of old pain. He could have stayed, and they think he's dead or worse.

It is Jon that finds him, Jon that coaxes him into sitting up and helps him into the clothes he's brought.

"You okay?" he asks, wiping a smudge from Spencer's chin.

Spencer shakes his head no. "Pete said ...."

"I know," Jon says. "Last night ... everyone saw. It's like, at the time you're not human -- we weren't ourselves, but we saw." He wraps an arm around Spencer's shoulder. "You're lucky," he says. "It's terrifying, losing your mind like that every fucking month."

"I didn't mean it," Spencer mumbles. "I should ... I don't belong here. I should leave. Pete should let me go. I'm not ... I'm not right."

"Dude, no," Jon says. "You're one of us. It's not the same for everyone. It's stronger for some people and weaker for others. You're just special, Spencer." He smiles, and pulls Spencer into a hug. "I'd miss you, if you left."

"Yeah," Spencer mumbles into Jon's neck. Jon isn't lying, but Spencer can't believe that he knows what it means to miss someone. He's part of the pack, and in the world of the pack, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

After the first of the year the cold gets deep. Frozen sap makes trees burst and the lake locks into a deep freeze. Even with the boon of the werewolf metabolism, it's hard to stay in human form for more than a few minutes as a time. They talk less, and sleep more. They trek far into the surrounding wilderness to find prey, and what prey they do find is underfed and weak. Tempers run short. There is nothing to do but eat and sleep and nothing to distract from the constant, bitter cold.

Except for Jon and Tom, nobody talks to Spencer. When they can, the rest of the pack pretends he's not there at all. Pete hasn't said another word to him. He is not liked, not welcome, and he knows that if he lost his way or got hurt while out hunting, nobody would make any effort to save him.

Then again, no extra effort would be made to save any of the pack. Nature's rules dictate that those who are not strong enough or smart enough to keep themselves safe and whole are given up as sacrifice. There is no room for fondness in the life of the pack, no time for affection. Jon and Tom's friendship is seen as aberrant and distasteful. Human affection is suspect. On the other hand, everyone is accorded his portion. Even those who treat Spencer like some unwelcome parasite make sure that he is given his meager share of any kill. Pete made him part of the pack; every single member takes that responsibility seriously.

On the night of the next full moon, Spencer makes sure that he does nothing that attracts attention. The mindless fury of his pack mates is terrible, and he does his best to ape it.

Tom is acting oddly. He goes off by himself more often -- scouting, he says. He has been with the pack many years, and he is trusted. Spencer sees him sometimes watching the sky carefully. The feathery clouds are laced with vapor trails. At night, they can see the blinking lights of airplanes far, far overhead. Spencer wants to ask Jon what his friend is planning. He wants to ask, but Jon is silent and moody, spending nearly all his time as a wolf.

He has finally found a place where he belongs, unequivocally, and he has never felt more alone.

(Pete trusts him; or Pete thinks he's such a fool that he grants him a certain clemency. If he goes off by himself, nobody follows, not any more. He likes to go up above the treeline, where the winds howl, and he likes to think about his old life. He is forgetting. It seems impossible, but he is forgetting, slowly. He can't remember what color his bedroom walls are. His sisters' faces are merging, slowly, when before he'd been able to tell them apart at a glance. And Ryan -- even Ryan is becoming indistinct, a vague outline colored broadly by gauged ears and spiked hair and bird-thin bones. He tries to remember what it felt like to lay next to Ryan in his tiny twin bed, to feel Ryan's heart thrum hummingbird fast under his pale fine skin. He knows that those nights used to be filled with an impossibly excruciating pleasure. He wanted so, so badly -- now desire itself is unclear and foreign).

He follows Tom and Jon, one day. He is silent and he is faster now and he paces them from a distance, hidden behind trees. They head towards Jon's cave. It seems almost impossible that he's kept it a secret, but Spencer realizes now how careful he is, how rarely he comes here, how incredibly fortunate he was that Jon came to his cave the night of that blizzard, the night he found Spencer. But for so many incredible coincidences, Spencer would be dead.

They have a plan, and a good one. It could work. Tom has found a forest station, maintained by just a solitary ranger in the winter, but always manned. It is fifty miles away, a distance they can cover in three days. If they can get to the cabin before the pack catches them, then they can pretend they are lost hikers. Pete is desperate to keep his secrets, but not so desperate he would risk revealing himself to a human.

Spencer waits for Jon to come to him. He is patient and tries not to be hopeful, but with every day that passes he feels a little more wrapped in the cold white nothing of the mountain winter. Every time Jon comes loping up, shaking the snow from his fur, Spencer expects that he'll take Spencer somewhere quiet and isolated and tell him of their plan, tell him that they're leaving.

He doesn't know why he expects that. Jon found him, sure, but other than that there is nothing to tie them together. Spencer thought they were friends, at first, but now he's not sure if there is any room for friendship in the life of the pack. He thought the rules were the same here; he didn't realize that he had been fundamentally altered. And if they are the same ... well, even then there's no guarantee. Ryan was his best friend, and even Ryan was drawing away, towards the end. Spencer has never been closer to anyone than he was to Ryan, and that still was not enough.

There is a thaw sometime in February. It's hard to keep track of the time passing, but Spencer tries. It seems important, somehow, to cling to those meaningless human increments. The melting snow beads on the bare branches and catches the sunlight. The well-trodden paths are inches deep in mud. Everyone is filthy. The river runs swollen and fierce, nearly overflowing its banks. The pack talks of moving to higher ground, if the weather stays warm. There have been floods. Wolves have been lost in the racing waters.

Tom volunteers to scout for a place to move the pack. Jon volunteers to go with him. Spencer's stomach goes all tight and his chest hurts. They're going to leave him here. He sat with them and told them all the best stories of his soporific suburban childhood. He sees the hunger in their eyes. They don't want to live this nearly animal life.

The night before they're supposed to leave Spencer sits with his knees pressed to his chest, near enough to the fire to feel the heat on his bare skin. Jon sits opposite, his face mysterious in the trembling shadows. There has not been enough food, lately, and his cheekbones are shadowed.

"It's pretty pathetic," Spencer says. "But I'd give anything for one of the disgusting chicken patties they used to serve in the cafeteria at my school. They were filled with little chewy bits. We used to call them giblet burgers."

Jon smiles weakly. "Sounds tasty, man." He won't meet Spencer's eyes.

"We used to joke that they were secretly conducting an experiment to see how much Styrofoam they could mix into the food before we'd notice." Spencer shakes his head. He can picture the dated cafeteria, with linoleum floors and gaudy orange checked walls. He can hear Brent grumbling in a low voice about the shitty meat loaf they served every Thursday. He can picture the other kids they sat with -- a kid with blond hair named Steven who played soccer and a kid with curly hair named ...

Spencer cannot remember his name.

It doesn't matter any more, really.

"You're lucky," Jon says, slowly. "You're lucky you have those memories."

"Yeah," Spencer says. He's not. It's a fucking curse. He would give anything to get them out of his head, not to have this constant reminder of what he lost.

They don't say much else, that night. In the morning the sun is huge and bright in a pale blue sky, and Jon and Tom are gone.

Spencer goes to Pete.

Most of the pack sleep in wolf form, huddled together around the ashes of a fire. He's starting to be able to tell them apart -- Nate's ears and tail are tipped with black, and William is taller and rangier than the others. He looks, but Pete is not among them.

He finds Pete leaning against a tree, watching the turgid river. The frothy brown water accumulates a collection of debris as it sweeps downhill; branches and mats of leaves float past. The bloated corpse of a songbird is tangled in one mat of vegetation. The sight doesn't bother Spencer like it would have once.

"What do you want?" Pete asks. He's much easier in his human form than some of them are. Spencer wouldn't dare ask, but he wonders again how old Pete was when he was bitten, how long he's been like this. He doesn't look very much older than Spencer, maybe five years at most.

"Jon and Tom are leaving," he says. He shivers, chilled, and not by the weather.

Pete looks up sharply, black eyes hard.

"There's a forest service station fifty miles from here," Spencer says, slowly. He is a reluctant traitor, but Jon's betrayal has left him sore and hollow. He knows there's no such thing as justice but part of him wants to close his eyes and cry and flail because it's not fucking fair of them to leave him. He wants to live in a world where things like fairness matters. "It would be days before you suspected they weren't coming back, and by then they'd be long gone."

Pete growls. The wordless noise means something now; Spencer can hear anger, and fear. "Why are you telling me?"

Spencer swallows. "They ... I thought the rule was nobody leaves."

Pete snorts, amused. "I didn't expect you'd end up some kind of snitch."

"You let me stay," Spencer says. "I owe you some loyalty, at least."

Pete narrows his eyes. "You're not as stupid as you look," he says.

"I'm learning," says Spencer.

Pete grins at him, and if Spencer did not know better now he might mistake the gesture for a token of friendship. But he is learning, has learned much already, and he knows not to make that mistake again.

Pete whistles, sharp, and two wolves come bounding into the clearing. They are alert and watchful, but they do not shift back to human.

"Go find Jon and Tom," Pete says. "Bring them back here. Take Joe with you."

The larger wolf yips and they dash off down the path from which they came.

"They'd do anything you tell them," Spencer says, after a moment. "Wouldn't they?"

Pete chuckles. "Probably," he says. "I don't push them too far. You don't understand what it's like for most of them. They were born out here, or brought here when they were too young to remember the human world. The pack is everything they know, and there is always someone in charge to protect the pack."

Spencer nods. Jon's told him, and yet he can't begin to imagine living an entire life out here. "There aren't any kids now," Spencer says, cautiously.

"No," Pete says, more forcefully than the answer calls for. "No, I stopped that. Nobody fucking deserves to live this way. We take in strays, if we find them, but turning someone intentionally is against every fucking rule we have. We're far enough away from anywhere inhabited that it doesn't happen by accident."

"That's good," Spencer says, swallowing slowly. Pete's eyes are nearly closed. In the distance, two wolves howl, first one and then the other in response, a register lower. "You remember, don't you?"

Pete glances up. The whites of his eyes shine. "Yeah," he says. "I was fifteen, not that much younger than you were. I hid it from everyone for eight months. I lied to my parents and snuck out to the woods behind my house on the full moon. My ..." He swallows. "My boyfriend followed me one night. I think he thought I was doing drugs, or mixed up in some shit that I shouldn't have been. I was that kind of kid. He followed me, and he was there when I turned. I ... I bit him, and he bled, but he didn't change."

Spencer frowns. "Why not?"

Pete shrugs. "It's not the same for everyone. He was ... he was an old soul. He was younger than me but he was so much more mature. He knew what he wanted from life. I was always looking for something else, for something that made sense."

"What happened?"

Pete shakes his head. "I don't know. It was the full moon. I was half out of my mind," he says. "When ... when I saw he wasn't changing, I got scared. He was so pale, and there was blood all over. I wasn't myself. I was fucking terrified. I ran. I ran as far and as fast as I could. I never went back."

Spencer breathes in sharp. It could have been like that for him. It could easily have been just like that. "I'm sorry," he says.

"Do you understand why nobody can leave?" Pete says. "They don't get it, most of them. They don't get how fucking dangerous we are. They don't understand how hard it is to look into the face of the person you love and see horror reflected there. That's why we're out here."

"What about me?" Spencer asks.

Pete's face goes dark. "It could change for you. It ebbs and flows. Some moons are weaker, some stronger. You could change next time and find yourself gone, prisoner to the wolf like the rest of us are."

"And if not?"

"You should never have come here, then," Pete says. "Even if you can control yourself, it's not a secret you can keep. You're one of us now, and you follow the same rules."

Spencer closes his eyes and nods. Somehow, in the pit of his stomach, he'd been harboring some faint flame of hope. Pete's words extinguish it. Spencer is cold and alone and resigned.

They bring Jon and Tom back five days later. They didn't get far, but they are traveling in human form, so that they can be restrained. They are bound with rope and bundles of aconite, to keep them in their human flesh. They resisted. Jon's lip is swollen and there is dark bruising on his chest, on his face. Tom's eyes are shadowed in rings of dark bruises, and there is dried blood trailing down his neck from the corner of his neck. Still, the wounds are healing, courtesy of their werewolf blood. They all heal quickly. In hardly any time, these wounds will be forgotten.

Spencer hangs back. He's not ashamed of what he's done -- not exactly, but he is worried. They might hate him. Jon might look up and meet Spencer's gaze and in his eyes there might be no kindness, no understanding, nothing but more of the cold emptiness that has slowly enveloped everything that Spencer cared about once.

He would rather not know, so he leaves.

Still, emotions don't run deep, out here. Jon and Tom lay low for a few days, sleeping mostly, and eating what Spencer brings them. He doesn't have to hunt for them, but he he feels responsible. A few nights on, Spencer has kindled a fire and sits beside it, alone. He might have told Pete about Jon and Tom, but it did not earn him any great gratitude from the rest of the pack. He is still ignored, still treated like some mistake. When he hears someone clumsily coming through the woods, he's confused. It's not one of the pack -- whoever is coming moves in human form, and not gracefully. When Jon emerges slowly from between the trees, Spencer inhales a sharp breath. Jon settles down on the other side of the fire. He still moves stiffly.

"I don't get it Spence," Jon says, quietly. His split lip is still swollen and he lisps a little when he speaks. "Why'd you tell Pete?"

Spencer stares at the ground. "I didn't want you to leave," he says. His voice is small. "It wasn't fair that you got to leave and I had to stay."

Jon's face is ashen. His breathing is labored. They hurt him badly and it is Spencer's fault. "Pete would never have let you come with us," he says. "We just wanted ... we wanted what you had. I wanted to live my life." His tone is reproachful.

Spencer closes his eyes. He thinks of every ungrateful, unhappy moment. He wanted to live some other life so badly. He had been so sure that he would be happy if he were just anyone other than his miserable self. He's not sure what happiness is any more, not really. He doesn't think it matters.

With his eyes still closed, he takes Jon's hand and squeezes. "Sorry," he mumbles.

Jon squeezes weakly back.

When Spencer opens his eyes, the moon is half risen over the dark solid shape of the mountains, very pale and just a few days off full.


	4. Epilogue

Fifteen full moons after Spencer joins the pack, the first trucks appear. Those months are long with repetition, and at first the appearance of a pickup truck on one of the old lumber roads is nothing more than a slight disturbance in the stultifying sameness of life. But the truck comes back, and with it come men. Pete sends Spencer to watch them, to spy and learn what he can. It's not so much that Pete trusts Spencer the most; rather, he trusts only that Spencer understands the gravity of the situation, understands the precautions that he must take.

 

Some of the pack haven't seen a real human since they were bitten.

 

Crouching low under the trunk of a fallen tree, Spencer listens and watches. The men work for a surveying company. They talk about elevation and approach and permits. Spencer doesn't have much experience in construction, but he understands.

 

They want to build a ski lodge. They want to tear down huge swathes of forest and build a fake town where people can come to pretend that they are roughing it.

 

If Spencer weren't a wolf, he would laugh.

 

When he gets back to the pack, he shares what he's learned. He isn't well liked, but everyone listens carefully. When he's done, nobody speaks. Pete's teeth are clenched tight.

 

"Fucking humans," he curses. "Fuck. Can't fucking leave anything alone."

 

"What are we going to do?" Nate asks.

 

"Yeah," Alex says. "Pete, where are we going to go?"

 

The refrain multiplies. They're scared.

 

Pete scowls. "Let me think," he says, and he bounds away in the darkness, shifting as he goes.

 

Later, he finds Spencer. "How long do you think we have?" he asks.

 

Spencer doesn't know. Spencer has no clue. He was a high school kid, not a general contractor. Sometimes they act like he's supposed to hold the key to all human knowledge. "I'm not sure," he says, slowly. "A while, at least. There's not even a paved road in place yet."

 

"We're going to have to leave," Pete says.

 

He's right. "There's lots of open space out there," Spencer says. "There's a place for us."

 

Pete shakes his head. "You don't believe that," he says.

 

Spencer shrugs. "I don't really believe anything," he says, calmly. "But I don't know what else we can do."

 

Time passes. At first they can ignore the trucks that come one or twice a week. Summer is ripening and the days are long and the nights are warm. It's a good time. Spencer goes with Jon and Tom to hunt when the elk calf. It would have bothered him once, preying on the very young and their vulnerable mothers. It still bothers him, but not as often and not as much as it once would have.

 

The week after the midsummer moon (Two years, Spencer thinks -- two years since he was turned, and he'll be nineteen in a few weeks. As if that matters. He feels much, much older.) an awful sound rips through the forest. Pete sends two wolves to confirm what they already know. They've started clearing land. There are larger trucks now, and men with chainsaws.

 

Their days in the valley are numbered.

 

Some of the pack start spending a little too much time as wolves. Some of they always spent more time as wolves then Spencer found comfortable. His mind is too human, too settled into human patterns. This is different, though. Alex and William disappear for half a week and when they come back they need to be dosed with aconite before they shift to human.

 

They say they got lost. It's a lie.

 

They disappear again, two weeks later. Pete lets them go.

 

"It's better," he says. "If they want to be wolves, it's better. It's the only life they know."

 

The pack dwindles further. Twenty-two strong when Spencer found them, there's only a dozen left. Some have died from injury or illness. Some have left. It's not an easy life. Pete says that most werewolves don't make it to thirty.

 

They leave in October. The trucks come in twos and threes every day, more and more. With the coming of the cold weather, hunting gets scarce, and they'll need to cover more and more ground. They head south.

 

Michael breaks his ankle chasing a hare. He takes a bad step. They all hear the bone snap.

 

It's a bad business, but they leave him. They know he's most likely going to die. Everyone knows it. Tom's brows are knit with anger and Jon won't meet anyone's eyes. Pete is pale and unsmiling. Spencer feels like he could throw up.

 

They don't really have any option. If they stay with him until he's healed, they'll hunt the area clean. If they take him with them, they'll be forced to travel as humans, hampered by his bum leg and their own weak human senses.

Maybe he won't die. It's not a sure thing. It's out of their hands, now, and fate has taken stranger twists.

When they set off that night, Pete's face is dark. Spencer knows that he's convinced Michael is doomed. If he wasn't, he'd finish him off himself.

They head south. The land gets drier and flattens out. Hunting is hard; there are no more elk and deer fattened in lush spring meadows. The rabbits and rats that they manage to catch are thin and tough. They're closer to civilization, here. Sometimes at night, they can see cars race past on distant desert highways.

It was never an easy life, but it was bearable. Now, they're hungry and irritable. Tom spends most of his time as a wolf. Jon won't talk to anyone. The others are tired and hungry. As humans, their skin is wan and there are dark circles under their eyes. Pete looks as beaten as the rest of them, but he presses them forward every night, like he can see some distant light that they rest of them cannot.

Months pass. It seems like the desperation of their situation should grant them some kind of reprieve, but days circle into nights and blank new moons ripen to full, and soon enough, it's winter.

Winter was hard in the mountains. In the desert, it's much worse.

The first storm catches them by surprise. They are wandering through a barren rocky plain, looking for water, when a veil falls over the brilliant night sky. The wind picks up, biting cold through their fur. Fat flakes of snow fall. There's no cover, nowhere to take shelter. The snow falls thicker and faster. Pete howls, and breaks into a run.

Spencer tries to follow the sound of his voice, but the wind howls too, uncannily similar in tone. The snow is wet and heavy and soaks through his fur. It bites at his lips and his nose. Pete makes for the dark shape of a little hillock, a mound of rock in the middle of the desert. Spencer doesn't know where they are, but he knows that there were never winters like this in Las Vegas. He saw snow only once, before he was bitten.

He makes it to the rock. Pete is there, panting, eyes bright and tongue red. There's a sheltered spot, a lee of the wind. Spencer's muscles ache. He lies down, spent. He feels Pete settle beside him, feels others curl up with them, but his eyes are closed against the cold and he is soon asleep.

They're down one person in the morning. Ronald, an older guy who Spencer had rarely spoken to, is missing. He got lost in the storm. The flat desert is a sheet of white, as smooth and perfect as the icing on a wedding cake. They won't find him now.

They go south slowly, licking their wounds. Nobody is crippled, nobody's hurt badly enough to leave behind, but nobody's doing very well either. There isn't enough to eat and the weather is fierce and there are signs, now, that they're drawing close to inhabited lands. Fences girds desolate farmland, and flat, empty roads crisscross the land.

The cattle farm is a blessing and it is a curse.

They don't realize at first that the dark hulking shapes huddled in the snowy night are cattle. Spencer doesn't know what they could be -- round and immobile beneath the snow. Jon goes up to one and sniffs and when it lows angrily in response, Spencer's heart leaps into his throat.

Cows. They're just cows.

The next morning is comparatively mild. They shift to human to talk.

"We could kill one," Tom says, optimistically. "We totally could."

Pete's eyes flash. "And then what? The farmer comes after us? They send out an alert that wolves are poaching their livestock? They set snares? Traps?"

"We're not dumb animals," Jon says, stubborn. "We're not going to get caught, Pete."

"Humans are pretty fucking stupid," Pete says. "I don't know which half of me you're insulting there."

Tom, lately amenable to anything Pete suggests, speaks up. "We've got to eat something. We're going to starve if we don't do something. Maybe we should head into town and see if we can do better there ..."

"No," Pete says. "No. We're not going into town. Fuck, even this is too close."

They kill the cow.

It's not hard. There are half a dozen of them, and the beast is stupid from cold.

They are all very, very hungry, and the meat and warm blood are delicious.

It's not a great option, killing livestock. It makes Spencer nervous. He watches warily out of the corner of his eye for farmers waiving rifles and pitchforks. It's the wrong image, something stuck in some rut of his brain from watching too many horror movies from the fifties, but he can't shake it.

It keeps the pack alive, as the winter grinds on. It keeps them alive as they creep south, towards more clement weather.

In the end, Spencer fucks up. It's not fate, not some cruel accident. He makes a mistake. He knows it.

They are in Nevada. They crossed over Interstate 15 a day ago, and they are resting near the land of a big cattle operation, waiting for night to fall, waiting for the darkness to cover their tracks as they slip in and run down some dumb beast.

There's not much else to their lives. There's not room for anything beyond running and hunting and slowly heading south, looking for some concealed place where they can start to live lives that are a little better than animal. At least it's warmer. They can spend time as humans, sitting and talking. It's nice, hearing voices. As wolves they are hampered. Their minds are acute and undiminished, but their lupine bodies aren't meant to speak.

They can't risk starting a fire. As the dome of the sky slowly spins from blue to black, the stars start to gleam. They're waiting. Pete is out scouting, out looking for some suitable prey. He shouldn't go alone. He shouldn't go alone, but he insists.

"What do you think you'd be doing right now, if you hadn't been bit?" Jon asks. "I mean, you were almost an adult. You had a life. Where did you want to be?"

Spencer shrugs. Jon's asked this question before, if not in these exact words, and Spencer has indulged him, spinning elaborate tales about the band he and Ryan had started, about his plans to go to school for biology, about dreams and ambitions he might never even have had. It's hard to remember, sometimes, what it was really like, and how much of it is just pleasant invention.

"I don't know," he says, slowly. "I really don't know."

"Do you think you'd be married?" Jon asks. "I always wanted to get married. Girls are kind of weird, but they're pretty awesome."

"I never really thought about it," Spencer says, obstinant, unwilling to indulge. "I was ... it was hard sometimes to think about the future. I was really worried about school, about my senior year I guess ..."

Jon sighs. "I always wanted to be a senior. My brothers had these really great varsity jackets. I don't know what sport I would have played. My dad tried to get me to sign up for football, but I would have gotten pounded. Maybe tennis or something. I really wanted one of those jackets."

Spencer doesn't know what to say. Stupid fucking varsity jackets were the last thing he'd been thinking about then. He'd hated those dumb jocks. Mostly, he had worried about the future, bleak and every day less distant. He'd worried that Ryan would leave and he'd be alone, with only the most casual and circumstantial of acquaintances for friends, waking in the morning to trudge to some meaningless job, and in the evening trudging home only to start again.

It had seemed so likely that life would be some colorless, dull procession from day to day. It is like that now, except when the full moon shines. Maybe it would have been the same, even if he'd not been bitten. Maybe nothing would be different -- or nothing the things that really matter, anyway.

Pete comes back. There are sheep in a pen a half a mile from the farmhouse. They have not eaten in a few days, and they need to soon. This seems like as good an opportunity as they're going to find. They shift, and set off, single file, Pete in the lead.

The sheep are quiet, huddled together. Their black faces and ears look velvety soft.

Pete creeps closer and closer. Jon and Tom follow. This is a routine that is well rehearsed. There is an awful moment where Spencer holds his breath, and then Pete lunges, and there is a hideous sound, inhuman, not animal -- the twisting sound of life leaving the body.

It's a sound that has become familiar.

The other sheep are unsettled and anxious, massing at the far side of the pen, pawing the ground. They drag the carcass towards the fence, towards the depression where they snuck under. Pete slips out, and Jon. Tom creeps under, and tugs the sheep with him. The body, filthy with dirt and blood, heavily lurches, and then stops. It's stuck. The fleece is stuck on a bit of wire. Spencer pushes and nips, but paws and teeth are a poor substitute for hands. Pete and Jon tug. The dead tongue lolls and the dead blank eyes stare.

The corpse is stuck, and Spencer is stuck behind it, on the wrong side of the fence.

Pete stares. His eyes are wolfish and unreadable even when he's a man. There's no emotion in them. Jon whines, unhappy. Spencer's heart is thudding in his chest. He could shift back to human and with the dexterity of his human hands and fingers he could undo the snarl, but they are on some stranger's property and there might be cameras, there might be unseen eyes watching. There is too much risk.

Tom tugs. The ligaments in the sheep's leg stretch unnaturally.

Lights flare in the distance, and they all freeze.

Through the wire of the fence, Spencer meets Pete's eyes. A pick-up truck rattles down the dirt road, not slowly. Pete's ears lay flat back against his head. Spencer's hair bristles. He glances at Tom, and then Jon. They aren't looking his way. They glance back over their shoulders at the truck, drawing nearer. Spencer butts the corpse, shoving, desperate. His pulse thunders in his ears. The truck is a two hundred yards away and slowing. Soon, they will fall within the shadow of the headlights.

Pete growls. Jon and Tom startle, and look at him. He glances once at Spencer, and steps away from the fence. Spencer whimpers.

They're going to leave him.

It's right. It's what they should do. They're acting in accordance with the rules of the pack, rules they've all agreed to abide by. He's done the same. He's closed his heart to compassion and walked away from hurt and dying friends, if any of the pack can call each other friend. Pete growls again, and paws the dirt.

Jon whines, pitiful, but when Pete takes another step into the darkness, away from the fence, away from Spencer, trapped behind it, he hangs his head and follows. Tom falls in line. They sprint off into the darkness. They do not look back.

The rancher slams the door of his pickup as he jumps out. There's a shotgun in his hand. Spencer's throat goes dry. He runs to the other side of the corral. The sheep huddled there bleat, miserable. The rancher has a powerful flashlight. The beam swings wide, to and fro, searching.

He's trapped. He's trapped and he is going to die. Maybe he deserves it. Maybe it's long overdue. Maybe he should close his eyes and round to face his attacker and fight with bared teeth and claws.

Maybe he should, but no matter how hard Pete tried to ingrain that streak of brutality in them, he's still too human.

He runs along the fence, seeking any weakness, any shallow hole he might slip through. It's in good repair, the wire pinned tight to the posts. The rancher's flashlight fixes on the herd of huddled sheep. Spencer sees a gate ahead, a little lower than the fence. Low enough, maybe, that he can jump it.

He's got to try. If he doesn't try, he's going to be shot.

His chest is achy as he breaks into a sprint. He crouches low and vaults himself as high as he can. The gate catches his legs, and he goes sprawling onto the ground on the other side. The rancher shouts. Spencer's been seen.

He scrambles to his feet as a bullet explodes into the soft dirt a little to his left. His bad ankle aches. The wind was knocked from his lungs and he's hurt. He's clear of the pen now, but there's a building ahead of him. He skids as he turns to the left. A bullet rings as it pierces the aluminum siding of the building. There are trees ahead, and he's nearly made it ... a scant twenty yards and he'll be out of the open ground, able to hide himself in the shadows of the copse of trees.

He darts for the shadows. The farmer is near. Spencer turns. A shot rings out.

It's not a good shot. The bullet doesn't pierce his belly, doesn't burrow into the meat of his legs or his back. It grazes a long, burning path across his flank. It sears. Pain washes over him, waves of agony that make him wish the hit had been directly, point blank, right between the eyes.

He has no such luck.

The force of the shot knocked him to his feet but he staggers back up. The rancher is twenty yards away, or fifteen. Spencer can see his coarse features, the delight written on his face at having slain one of the big, bad wolves.

He's in the right. He's not in the wrong, in any event. His land and his sheep, and they stole them. In the wild, there's no property; whoever can kill, eats. They tried to straddle the two worlds, but they should have known better.

It's only adrenaline that lets Spencer keep running. It's not a fast pace. He can feel the blood soaking his fur, clumping it wetly against his side. He swallows. His eyes are watering. The man isn't as agile, is not as fast. He curses, and jogs back to his car. The engine rumbles. Spencer is not stupid. He stays in shadows and tight places, places the man cannot see him. Places where he won't be found.

All night he runs, leaving a trail of his blood in his wake. He skirts hills and gullies where after the rare desert storms streams are suddenly born. Time is meaningless, measured only in the throb of the wound on his side.

When the eastern sky lightens, he lays down in the the crevice of a ravine, moving as far into the shadows as he can. It's not a safe place to sleep. A few houses that back onto the empty gully, dark and inert now, but with day they will wake and maybe children will spill into the backyards to play tag and hide-and-go-seek and someone will discover him.

The exhaustion and pain are too great for him to care. He does not know if he will wake, after he sleeps. He feels some darkness in his gut, some desperate bleakness he's never felt before. Maybe this time, he's played his hand and lost.

He drops his head and closes his eyes and dreams of the people sleeping in those houses, dreams of the lives they lead and the lives they want to lead. He dreams of his own life, half forgotten and seemingly no more real. They are good dreams, and they console him as he sleeps.


End file.
